1m2 - Michiel Jansen

From the 30th of January, Michiel Jansen will exhibit a series of works in the design store van der Vlies & Koers in Rotterdam. This store exclusively sells clothes designed by the two owners, and in a response to these designs, Jansen presents minimalist sculptures that relate to this context of fabrics and unique textile products. Through their intricate weave-like and systematically intertwined patterns, the sculptures reflect on the originality of the store's designs and draw parallels to the craft of textile making.

Jansen's sculptural works are made of thin, pliable strips of multiplex, flexible enough to be bent into curves and loops without fracturing. In his works he pushes the limits of what the material can do in a wide range of aesthetic and formal explorations. The cursive shapes flow in and around themselves and investigate the boundaries of the technique within almost hypnotic repetitions of pattern.

The material used in the works is essentially simple and quite unremarkable in its raw state, but it lends itself perfectly to these beautiful examinations of repetition and rhythm, and Jansen's process is one of the craftsman and researcher as well as the artist.

Whether suspended from the ceiling, standing on the ground or placed in front of a window, Jansen's sculptures transform and activate the room around them by slicing into the space and inviting viewers to explore them visually and through movement. With every step you take towards or along them, the sculptures seems to shift and move when seen from a different perspective, their individual elements reacting and relating to one another. That which by the first look shapes the contours of drops or bows can switch before your eyes with another step to reveal a series of loops that protrude on each side of the structure.

Simplicity and complexity are two seemingly contradictory concepts, yet Michiel Jansen manages to unite them in his sculptural works. His constructions seem at the same time light and full of captured energy, their components held in constant suspension. In a search for a universal truth through repetition, he generates and studies systems of shape and movement in a spare and logical elegance.