KEIJSERS KONING

We take a look at one work and discuss it in depth with the artist, form its correlation to their past works to the narratives at large. We will be featuring these interviews on a monthly basis. Follow it under the Interview tabs or click here.

This interview was conducted in August 2020 with Jeff Grant (JG) and Bart Keijsers Koning (KK)

Jeff Grant, Effort Object 10, 2020 Pencil and colored pencil on paper, colored frame, 75 x 40 inches  Courtesy of Keijsers Koning

KK – You have been working on this series titled “Effort Objects”, for the past 2 years. However lets start with how we got here.

JG – I have been playing with toys and tools for decades now, while contemplating the maturity of childhood and the immaturity of the adult world.  I would think this played a large part in how I got here.

KK – what I always love about these compositions, is that they seem ‘straightforward’ but once you look upon closer inspection you see numerous amounts of scratching and erasing on the papered surface. You seem to really slave over these images leaving these ghostly erased images. How do you go about the composition?

And are these ‘ghost images’ not just part of it but how are they accounted for?

Jeff Grant Detail of Effort Object 10, 2020 Pencil and colored pencil on paper, colored frame 75 x 40 inches Courtesy of Keijsers Koning

JG – The drawings start on a blank page and the composition is usually made up as I go along.  A lot of changes occur and often I need to remove previous marks and change things around; colors, forms, textures.  Because the paper is thin and cheap, it’s easy to wrinkle and mark-up, and erasing takes a toll on it.  The marks that are left behind become part of the composition, often leaving textures around the figures.  They leave a record of the creation process, and remind me of kids drawings with eraser marks and smudges, and a history of choices on a page.

KK – How did you get to this series, it makes sense of where the direction of the works are coming from when we look at the Lineament shift series and the play on where things are supposed to be and pushing the assumption we have with an object or face. However, in this series the object becomes very prevalent. These objects, are they inspired by your photographs of the playgrounds and your recent sculpture in the Lanzarote? How did you find these objects to be? I mean do they form character traits for you? These toy-like characteristics and the way you stack them, seems logical, as well as humorous. How do you get to your compositions?

Jeff Grant Horse whirl, 2017 Plastic strapping and toy horses Approx. 5.25 x 21 x 32 inches Courtesy of Keijsers Koning

JG – I was working on a large group of quick drawings and two of the drawings that came out of this were the starting point for the Effort Objects pieces. Using colors and shapes, that could be like toys and/or tools at the same time, with shapes that could be inanimate or alive or cartoons or abstract. This is consistent with a lot of my work in which things are familiar and abstract at the same time, or seem alive and lifeless by turns. The photographs of playground equipment and exercise equipment in parks definitely influenced this body of work, as well as the outdoor sculpture work I made for Lanzarote, which directly sprung from these drawings. In fact that sculpture is a near replica of the shape from one of those early sketches.

KK – We’ve spoken about this prior and you hate me bringing it up (laughter) but there is a sexual suggestiveness that cannot be ignored and how do you address this observation. Especially since we use words like adult play. Play and innocence are usually associated to one another and there is an undertone like “Effort Objects 1” is rather obvious with this notion of innocent and sexual, or less so like #7. How do you visually deal with such an obscure subject matter?

Jeff Grant Round Nose, 2016 Pencil and pigment on paper 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of Keijsers Koning

JG – I used a hammer as a dildo once – (The handle of course) – It was very effective. (both laugh)  I also smashed out my teeth with a hammer once. Purely accidental, innocent you might say.  A tool looks like a sex toy and a sex toy looks like a toy toy, and toy toys are often made to resemble tools.  

Adult play and childhood play and work and discovery and creating are all connected.  I do not believe in childhood innocence but I do believe there is a lot of adult naivete.  To mix the concept of sex with a loss of innocence seems very naive to me.  Adults are often “childish” about sex, and children are often much more honest and direct in their discussions about difficult subjects.

KK – Those are some new details about you…. Ok, In this particular work, “Effort Object 10”, 2020 we have three distinct creatures some stoic and more referencing tools but others like the one at the top – and maybe due to his more defined white the pupil – seem to possess more character or be alive. How did you decide on this within the composition? To either leave it utilitarian or fill with a life?

Jeff Grant Creation spin 2, 2017  Staples, plastic strapping, book page fragments, and t-pin. Book page element from an image of Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Creation” 13.5 x 8 x 8 inches Courtesy of Keijsers Koning

JG – This piece was originally intended to have three figures, but after the third one was finished the work did not feel like it was.  The fourth figure is the dark blue one, and it links up the rest of the figures forming a type of circle.  The fourth figure needed to be able to appear animated and like a functional static toy at the same time.  Sometimes the figures have details that make them look like living characters, and sometimes they may seem like mindless objects. The truth is I keep both possibilities in my mind while I draw each figure.  I don’t insist on either being truth.   I am using what I suspect to be the viewers expectations and associations to activate the relationship between the figures.

KK – I want to speak a bit about the negative space in these feel very present, specifically the larger drawings. How did you come upon it? It also intrigues me as it allows the ‘feeling’ of the paper, as the negative space draws attention to the physicality of the paper work.

Jeff Grant Snow and holes 2, 2016 Archival inkjet print, mylar, and staples 8.25 x 15.25 inches Courtesy of Keijsers Koning

JG – The negative space is like an empty opening in the middle of still life.  Like if inflatable pool objects drifted into a circle and remained in contact with each other.  I put the figures closer to the bottom of the drawing, which suggests a gravity that could also be at work, in contradiction to the idea of floating in, or on, space.  Giving the appearance of heavy and weightless; volumetric and flat. I love the cheap, easily wrinkled paper, and always consider it one of the main elements of these works.  It reminds me of the type of paper kids might draw on, like when they doodle on printer paper or in their notebooks,  It feels like a familiar surface for anyone to draw on.

The surface and its variations is a result of thick and often numerous applications of colored pencil and graphite.  Usually more than one color is used.  The various textures are a result of different color pencil qualities and of erasing and sanding and other handwork.  In this drawing the particular pencils I used in the brownish areas apply a very dense layer of material.

Jeff Grant Effort object 18, 2018 Graphite, colored pencil, paper, frame (Pantone 2935 C) 9 1/4 × 13 3/8 – 23.5 × 33.9 cm Courtesy of Keijsers Koning

KK – How do you decide on your color? It this series it seems even more at the forefront than your other works. Granted it always was consciously and precisely used but certainly more frugal than what we are shown here. Could you also speak a bit about the frame and its color?

JG - There is no consistent process for selecting the colors. Sometimes i start a drawing with one or more colors in mind, even before the forms. The colors are often added one at a time, in response to the color/s that are already on the paper and to the form that the objects take. I often think of colors of manufactured objects like dishes, toys, and tools.

There are four pre-selected colors I use for the frames and those too are selected while thinking about manufactured objects and equipment. The frame color is paired with the drawing element based on things happening within the drawing, particularly the colors and the proximity of the forms to the edge of the sheet. When I pair the frame element with he drawing element I am trying to create a complete object.

KK - In conclusion I wanted to raise something you mentioned before as it is interesting you brought up ‘truth’, I always find your work to be direct and honest in its own entity or being which allows for us (the viewer) to relate to the narrative even if we don’t fully understand it. There is a strange comfort in the bearing of truth/honesty that allows a viewer to navigate your work. I think it takes immense confidence in your work and trust the viewer to have it live in our realm on its own term.

This will be the location of interviews and news related to Keijsers Koning the gallery and the artist’s endeavors.