Our last Kick-About took us on journeys through landscapes both real and imagined, and from inner space to outer space. This week, we turn to herman de vries, whose work asks us to look closely at the materials, patterns and processes of the natural world. As always, the works that follow were made in a short time — and for all previous editions of The Kick-About, go here.
James Randall
“Once again, Phil has introduced me to an artist I didn’t know. herman de vries is the ultimate nature collector — and I get the impulse to stop and pick up rocks and bones and sticks and shells when I’m out on a walk. But is this just a reflection of our compulsion to amass things in general? Will AI want to collect? Collect what? Rocks and bones?”
Graeme Daly
“Landscapes are one of my favourite things to paint, and I’ve been collecting all the different plants and trees from my landscape illustrations into a database so that, down the line, I can print them and experiment with collage. It felt very fitting to stick them all together and see them isolated for this week’s Kick-About!“
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.ie
Phil Gomm
‘This was a relaxing and mediative prompt. First I collected lots of half walnut shells, discarded by red squirrels. Then I deconstructed a really chunky pinecone into its individual scales. I filled the walnut shells with plaster, so I could see the negative space inside and better show-off the cross-sections of the shells. To get them smooth, I sanded them and then arranged the walnut halves and the pinecone scales into de vries-inspired grids. In a further nod to de vries’s work, I photographed the rubbings left behind on the sandpaper after finishing the walnut halves.”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
Tom Beg
“I didn’t quite get these to a finished place, although I do like them as a starting point. I tried to make something inspired by herman de vries’ more algorithmic and graphical works.”
Kerfe Roig
“If I had my shell collection here, I would have done something with that. What I did have, I realised, was many, many photos I had taken of the moon. Two of the four apartments I’ve lived in since 2020 had great views of the moon from my window, and I’ve just been downloading the photos and putting them in folders. I have a lot!
I only got through 2020, 2021 and 2022, and I didn’t have time to do composites of anything but some of the close-ups, taken at dawn and dusk when the detail shows up. So… another unfinished project for another day. I also wanted to write some poems to go along with them, but only managed one very short one.
As always, I like how these prompts can inspire me to do something I would otherwise not have done.”
Variations
I look for patterns
some kind of lunar logic
to close my inner gaps
Charly Skilling
“After such a long, dry summer with virtually no rain, the garden is full of plants that have gone to seed, dried completely to a papery consistency, but are still upright and undamaged. I collected some fennel, sweet pea and stachys heads, thinking I might be able to use the seeds in some way.
I stuck them in a container while I thought about it, but they arranged themselves so pleasingly that I decided to paint them just as they were. I sketched them first in portrait, but felt the sketch wasn’t capturing the airiness or the breadth of the plants, so when I came to paint them, I did it in landscape. I made it monochrome to reflect de vries’ muted colours, but also because the plants demanded it.”
Next time, we’ll be contemplating what remains, and what might be made from the human traces we leave behind…
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