Jan-Kenneth Weckman
Jan-Kenneth Weckman is a visual artist from Turku, Finland, mostly concerned with painting and drawing
Drawing on the surface of the owen
To do something for Jan-Erik and his project Life on a Leaf, his, Marjo’s and Adrian’s new house, was a major pleasure.
Honored to be invited to manipulate the surface of the open-fire structure, in Finnish “takka”, it took only a couple visits. First, we tried out, with the help of Juha Konkka, the expert on the materials, how I could make a tight surface by drawing directly in the wet plaster.
In this drawing I was actually using the same shapes that I had been using for my next exhibition of paintings, which in itself is something new, or actually something really old. I started out with the same kind of expression in the 1960:ties. But it was forbidden in the art school. I was to be educated in abstraction with a geometric or cubist flavor. So this drawing style, somewhat in the direction of the Moomin creator Tove Jansson having a nightmare, disappeared from my work for some decades. Now it is back!
Some years ago I had the experience to paint similar kind of shapes on huge ceramic eastern eggs! The images on the Takka-piece is, then, a continuation of both my earliest and the latest interests in painting and drawing. The Takka has no coloured contrasts except what the light makes to the relief drawing. The shapes resemble a little bit some kind of organic form, but they have no specific source. The drawing evolved only as in a dialogue with its own restrictions, corners, sides, up and down, openings and edges. Contrary to my first plans, I left open areas without drawing and the winding forms became more visible this way. The Takka got images, not a texture. This happened quite naturally as I made the traces with a wooden stick.
Jan Kenneth Weckman august 27th 2008 in Rusko
www.jankennethweckman.fi
Jan-Kenneth Weckman (right) is making a try out with the brick layer Juha Konkka (left), to see how a drawing can be made on the plaster surface.