Artist's Statement, 2016

 

          I work from a place deep inside me, bringing forth the overwhelming influence in my art that is my life on the farm in Douglas County, Illinois. While subjectively my work “stays close to home,” I’m continually exploring rural heritage from my unique viewpoint. Always seeking to create surprises from the mundane, I have expanded my media to include non-traditional, unexpected materials in both my two and three-dimensional works. I take what I have learned about the elements and the principles of design and provide my audience with a visual experience that is, at once, extraordinary, perhaps nostalgic and satisfying.

           Much of my two-dimensional work is narrative, though very open ended. The old home interiors, rural settings and references to the agricultural life are, these days, foreign to many people and, consequently, odd or only strangely reminiscent. I believe that there is great fun in ambiguous imagery. I enjoy merely hinting at the reason of things and coaxing my audience to come along to places they may have seen only from the road. Over the past few years, my experimentation with various inks and papers has allowed me to develop my unique process and produce two-dimensional pieces I call Inklings©. The alcohol-based, colored inks I use satisfy my desire for sumptuous, transparent, intense color and blend-ability. They also allow me to edit my images almost endlessly and have become my media of choice for my two-dimensional work.

          Following the same influences that permeate my two dimensional work, I  find the raw materials for my sculptures among the detritus of Illinois agriculture, cast off pieces and parts of farm equipment. From them, I create three dimensional compositions, which I call AgriSculpture©. It is exciting to give new life to things that have been discarded. I like to take the combining of objects and materials beyond what is common and expected and, using those good old principles and elements of design, create distinctive pieces. I begin my sculptural process by  wondering around among the “junk” and other “useless stuff” I am constantly collecting until I find pieces that seem to want to “play together,” always open to unplanned results. It is a very “domestic” pleasure for me to hunt for and gather components for sculptures. I find a familiarity in the heft of these old things, as if they are old friends shaking my hand. Giving them a new life as art echoes the challenges in my own life throughout the years. I’m constantly intrigued by the natural aging of steel and iron, therefore, I usually preserve their corrosion as a part of my works. When those old bits and pieces laugh at the idea that they were ever defined as “obsolete,” I feel I have successfully proven my point that, “beauty and value never disappear; time and the elements of Nature merely change their context.”

 

 ~Jan Kappes