Going Against The Grain: Painting on Digital Wood
/A brief yet powerful collaboration, aptly titled - Fresh Paint, has brought three artist together to create four unique pieces of art. Jon Kleinhample, Founder of Brussels-based design firm LMBRJK, has a knack for creating intriguing objects using digital methods of fabrication. The objects of subject are LMBRJK's Trilip Series Vases, a handmade collection of voluptuous vases constructed from layers of plywood. Kleinhample's Trilip vases became the canvas for fellow collaborating artists Oli-B and LastYardz to paint on.
The TRILIP SERIES is an investigation and catalog of organic beauty. Each vessel is distilled from the formal logic of a tulip and an index of functional constraints, such as height, width, performative cavities, perforations, historical vase typologies, etc. The vases are a result of digital wood, A term Kleinhample has coined meaning a re-assembly of sheet lumber into functional objects.
The Fresh Paint exhibition called for both Oli-B and LastYardz to each paint two Trilip vases, one vase over the course of two weeks, and another vase was painted live at the exhibition's final event. Oli-B is a street artist and painter from Brussels who uses uses vibrant shades of acrylic, spray paint as well as screen printing techniques to create abstract and curvacious characters.
Also a street artist and painter, LastYardz, paints tantalizing yet slightly ailing scenes filled of societal decay with an urban twist. His work, tantalizing yet intriguing, exuding a delightful bit of anarchist spirit.
To create the Trilip vases hundreds of veneer layers form together, cut from hardwood and softwood species harvested from Slovenian forests. The layers are tooled using a CAD-based, 80-watt laser cutter, and then assembled by hand in the studio.
The exhibition resulted in four unique vases, each illustrates a medley of the collaborating artist's styles.Oli-B painted a collage of colorful curvy shapes overlapping one another, exposing portions of the raw wood below.
LastYardz coated the top portion of one Trilip in black, and the other in white, with etchings branded into the unpainted areas. At the final event, the design enthusiasts of Brussels packed into a shop to witness the artists painting the vases live, at the end of the evening, the collaborators gave away two of the four painted vases in a raffle. Lucky.
