Utu in a dirty frame - A (2021) Printmaking by Jerome Goldnose

The beauty of ancient buildings is hard to forget, with those half faded frescoes and crumbling ornamental art. Or maybe for you it is objects found in the earth while building yet another highway or so. If you look closely you recognize how perfectly beautiful they once were. It must have been made by someone; it must have influenced the present in some way - but we have no way to know that. This is what I am playing with in my art. 

I lived in squatted factories from age 16, did a lot of painting, 3D-collages and photography - until at age 24 I threw all my art in my wood stove and started studying history, general literature and theater science. Took up creative writing, got interested in interactive stories and games. I made backgrounds for these stories in Photoshop with my own photos, and when I started printing them, I created my own frames to make them look like found objects from some forgotten basement in an abandoned place.

My work is influenced by both science fiction and archeology. I am inspired by human history and that which is strange and alien to us, the unimaginable. I try to create works that look like they are artifacts discovered in some forgotten crypt in a distant future. I am playing a game with the observer, by mimicking certain forms, by using the grammar of past times and making something new by introducing dissonants into my work.

I use my own photos to create digital paintings and montages in handmade ornamental frames. These ornaments are made of a self-developed fiber composite, which is inspired by recipes from the 19th/18th century. My works are printed on painted wooden surfaces. This allows me to later work on them with for instance paint, ash, shellac, flames and sharp objects.

I often make multiple prints of every artwork and multiple casts of every ornamental frame, but it will always come out different. This is because the manual reproduction techniques I use are designed to not give perfect copies. It is the opposite that is my goal: I am aiming for imperfection. This is because they really should look like artifacts or found objects, with each their own story, their own texture, their own color. Every artwork could be seen as part of an open series, but in reality they are all unique in their own special way - just like snowflakes falling towards the earth.

The common theme in my work is time.

• Nationality: NETHERLANDS
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Dutch Artists