Aug 12

Kees Ouwens

Kees Ouwens is a contemporary stone sculptor, installation artist, and painter who has exhibited and participated in art festivals internationally since 1985 in countries such as Mexico, Japan, the United States, the Netherlands, Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea, Italy, and the United Kingdom. His most recent exhibitions have been in Mexico such as a feature at the Barco II Contemporary Art Biennial. Kees owns a large studio complex and sculpture garden in rural Mexico which he actively works from and holds an annual event called Proyecto en Sitio which invites artists from around the world to install various installations and artworks on site.

Primarily known for his raw slabs of stone sculptures, Kees creates works which appear to have unfinished, incomplete, and imperfect minimalist qualities reminiscent of the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi. Often interacting with natural environments, the stone installations and sculptures present themselves as imposing, often tall in stature and containing asymmetry and harsh angles.

These monumental structures contain ancient and primal qualities harkening to eras of prehistoric art similar to the ancient structure of StoneHenge in England. His paintings even resemble compositional elliptical qualities of ancient prehistoric paintings such as the various hunter murals found in the caves of France. There remains almost no symmetry or geometry in Kees’ sculptures, rather he depicts free forms resembling pillars with sections of broken angles and rough edges.

Specifically, the various installation sculptures set up as structures throughout natural environments are often monumental in scope and contain a sense of raw grit and masculine form. Often vertical and containing rough, sanded edges these works reflect concepts on erosion and the passage of time. The rough application on the stone sculptures have the appearance of surfaces being withered away by the power of time, wind, oxygen, and water. What do these structures say about our relationship with nature? Perhaps the works indicate a longing to connect to our ancestral past when humans were interacting and working with nature on a daily basis. The raw exposure of the stone communicates our understanding of course texture.

Kees Ouwens’ artworks reveal a sense of character in the materials. These rough and crude constructs tap into the primal spirit and essence of the origins of human-created structures. His work bridges the gap between contemporary minimalism and prehistoric application. Kees connects the audience with their distant ancestors through art which taps into our fundamental appreciation regarding wonders of natural elements.