Biography

Monday • January 5, 2009 • by JPOpperman

 

Jean-Paul Opper­man (1980, The Netherlands)

Education:

Graphic Tech­niques, Arn­hem. 1994–1996
Graphic Design, LOI. 1996–1997
Graphic Design, Utrecht. 1998–2000
Rietveld Acad­e­mie, Ams­ter­dam. 2000 — 2005

When I was young the act of draw­ing was a cer­tain wannabe behav­ior. I col­lected car­toons at that time and I wanted to be able to draw my own sto­ries upon what I felt like. My choice when I was 14 to study graphic tech­niques was quite obvi­ous in that sense. But it was not until the age of 17 that I got into visual art and not mod­ern art but renais­sance art. Aging had a lot to do with that, just like car­toons had with telling sto­ries. So I started to paint, again not as a tal­ented per­son but as some­one who wants cre­ate art that some­how sur­vives. I bought pig­ments, primed my own can­vas just like they used to do this. Often it took me 2 weeks to prime and than I didn’t know what to do. To happy with my bright white can­vas, the empty can­vas showed life in it’s most pri­mary behav­ior and that prim­ing could eas­ily sur­vive for hun­dreds of years! For my looks and art behav­ior it can even be said that I started to dress myself even more as magi­cian back than, because I some­how felt enlight­ened by the thought of cre­at­ing paths of sur­vival.

 

Key Hole — 70x100 cm (1998)

Lab­o­ra­tory Me — 240x220 cm (2003)

Per­sonal Ini­ti­a­tion — 50x75 cm (2004)

Dark into Light — 320x400 cm (2005)

 

Later on when I entered the acad­emy of art, l came again as an out­sider, mis­un­der­stood from which I myself was mostly to blame. When l choice car­toons and renais­sance it came from my own my urge and ques­tions but if you have no clue on what art should com­mu­ni­cate all ideas are fake. 6 years after my pre­vi­ous dreams I found the thought of rebirth, which was in the basics an African approach to my child­hood love for myths and car­toons so l started again. Rebirth came and l felt new and my style changed to instal­la­tion art, some said l got influ­enced by Beuys and such but this was not true. I could under­stand where he came from but for myself I was hyp­no­tized by the thought of cre­at­ing a cocoon for my new world, an installed book story in which I and the oth­ers could feel pro­tected. Sure l got my inspi­ra­tion from the African ini­ti­a­tions but l didn’t real­ize that l used another aspect of sur­viv­ing, the ini­ti­a­tion as a way to build skills to sur­vive in the real world, another part of the hero arche­type, he needs to over­come difficulties.

 

Out­siders — 80x140 cm — 2006

Open your roads — 200x240 cm (2007)

Bei­jing Bridge — 240x350 cm (2008)

 

Late 2005 after my grad­u­a­tion l started to feel dif­fer­ent cold, lonely and empty. All was done, and there I was stand­ing, I could con­tinue in my aca­d­e­mic behav­ior, exhibit my art in gal­leries, have fun with my title and all, or con­tinue study to get a mas­ter degree but I decided dif­fer­ent. I went back to my roots and thought ok I’m going to cre­ate draw­ings and tell my sto­ries again and I’ll see what I keep from what they told e on art school, so I did. Super strong I felt because I broke with all those years before in choos­ing for myself. What l actu­ally said was I’m here and I need a mir­ror to see if I’m here. So I started to draw and I came back to myself, telling sto­ries but now from the art point of view instead of car­toon like, so some­how those years where not lost at all.

 

Bliep — 70x100 cm (2008)

Wish­ful Think­ing — 40x40 cm (2009)

Bring it Home  — 260x440 cm (2009)

Owww Noooo  — 220x340 cm (2009)

 

 

Back in 2008 I had a period that I also started to cre­ate videos and other more con­cep­tual art, because I felt like break­ing again, it’s easy to fall asleep in what you if your no longer aware of it. It made me happy and proved that my eyes where still open. Later on the same hap­pened with poetry and writ­ing, as a way to explore new fields and poten­tial inte­gra­tions with my sto­ries. Now in 2010 I often­times have the feel­ing that I look at my draw­ings and think yes, in some way I was think­ing the same way on the acad­emy 7 years ago but it’s all dif­fer­ent now, that’s a great feel­ing because it’s shows I’m still close to myself in my art.

 

 

Bub­ble Bee Beat — 50x65 cm (2010)

Here’s a sink­ing Ship — 40x45 cm (2010)

Powww  — 260x345 cm (2010)

Bottom-line will be that my art is telling sto­ries on daily life with sym­bolic lan­guages and often­times based upon car­toon like arche­type hap­pen­ings, like a stranger that walks into the world, a lit­tle mis­be­hav­ior, shout­ing with­out mean­ing, being tired or bored, love etc. No polit­i­cal or reli­gion related mes­sages, but a small stage where one pre­vails with his lips and foot­steps the rhythm of his time in lines, papers, smiles and hopes. When art comes to life it becomes a lit­tle myth itself, which we should cher­ish like being all kids see­ing a cave paint­ing for the very first time. Why do those bulls walk on stone wall a kid could ask. The father would say it’s Art and they Artist would say, it’s the place for art to walk there where the other’s didn’t walk before….how else could our mes­sage be seen?