Mik Bakker

RE FORM

To exist again, or to make something exist again. 

To improve (someone or something) by removing or correcting faults, problems, etc. 

To put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state. 

To change from worse to better; to amend; to correct.

To improve your own behavior or habits.

Questioning the interaction and dialogue between art and design are the focus of my research and production. How do sculptural infinity and imagination relate to the functional and responsible essence of furniture? Is the designed object autonomous; free or applied; bounded? 

This process produced these three projects that address materiality, perception and attitude. 

RE FORM  / 1 volume    

Beyond the immediate  recognisable shapes I find beauty in negative spaces, following my interpretation of how it could behave and what they could possibly be.

Stainless steel frame that shows cut-outs for elements of machinery in the water and transportation network. Chosen out of the useless left-over production process of the water-jet cutting factory : Hynamic near Dordrecht. Disposable and almost worthless becomes specific and valuable to me.

RE FORM  / 2 transformation

Collect, compose and scale. I challenge myself to explore and play with the possibilities between functionality and sculpture by limiting myself to only using shapes that are left behind. 

Small pieces of left-over balsa wood from projects of my fellow students at the laser print workshops at the academy. I selected and enlarged the small 3D sketches and Studio Likapika cooperated to make the final executions of the 4 models. Strange yet familiar is questioned through these models. I feel alienated and excited at the same time. 

RE FORM  / 3 perform

When an object is physically transformed , it becomes an independent act: it is empowered  to pursue or perform a different state. I like to play with abstraction in relation to wall-collages and furniture. These colors and shapes are inspired by the work of Cuban visual artist Carmen Herrera and the American minimalist painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly. 

The public is invited to dismantle the colorful wall-collages and transform them into a table or several chairs. The viewer becomes a performer.