Description

Jan Eric Visser

Veritas

Artist’s book & retrospective catalogue of the artist’s work

Published by Verbeke Foundation, Belgium, 2017

Jan Eric Visser creates art from trash. This book celebrates 20 years of the artist’s work creating remarkable sculpture.  Jan Eric Visser is an artist deeply concerned about depletion of the earth’s resources. Waste may be finally recognised now as a hugely topical and important subject. However, by no means all of it is effectively recycled. So, Jan Eric aims to be an advocate for a more resourceful society. Through his artistic transformation of trash, he aims to help to change its values. But it is also about his own change.

 “I must admit that I don’t look upon art as another commodity that is easily understood and consumed. Every day I am working towards a transformation of matter, and therefore of myself”

Based in Rotterdam, the majority of his work begins from his own household. He saves all the paper and card, packaging and newsprint which comes in through the front door. Once it has served its original purpose, he transforms it in his studio into sculptural forms. In Jan Eric’s world, it becomes part of another form of existence for artistic purpose.

Always an innovator

Jan Eric trained as an artist at the art academy at Kampen, Netherlands, 1982-7, specialising in sculpture. Always an innovator, he began to pioneer creating art from waste in 1987. Several large public commissions followed. He has had over 40 exhibitions in the Netherlands and elsewhere including, Trash Art at GroundWork, 10 March – 2 June, 2018.

‘Veritas’ is the latin word for ‘truth’. Jan Eric had noticed that this same word ‘Veritas’ brands the boats in Venice which carry the garbage out of the city. It made him think about waste as truth. Waste for him contains the essence of a new poetry. Visser describes waste as ‘the new gold’, increasingly gaining in value. Furthermore in future it will be more and more commercially traded, sought after and fought over.

From November 2017-April 18, Jan Eric Visser had a major exhibit as part of ‘Lost in Garbage’ at the Verbeke Foundation, Westakker, Belgium. Thirteen other artists also used waste as a substantive starting point and artistic medium. To accompany this, the foundation published this book about Jan Eric’s work