My Dogma

The Amsterdam church that Kavelaars uses as his studio now provides him with a new challenge. After the large-scale murals he made in Shanghai, Iran and Amsterdam, the monument is provoking him. The space is larger than any other place he has ever worked in. The walls are more pristine than most canvases he has touched.

Because its monumental status states that the church should remain intact, Kavelaar is forced to find different methods of painting the building. For the first time in his artistic practice, he turns to digital ways of working. As an artist he has always refrained from new media, his paintings being the outcome of a very analogue practice. Obviously, by deciding to work with animation and video mapping to create a living painting, Kavelaars takes a big step.

For the project, Kavelaars has joined forces with motion design studio Mr.Beam in order to blend his analogue practice with new media. Rather than static paintings, Kavelaars creates several stop-motion animations that are projected on the church's walls and ornaments by Mr. Beam.  In dozens of shots they capture the development of an artwork. The church is taken over by doodles that follow the architecture of the space. Kavelaars then makes room for his expressive, more autonomous work – he challenges his own figurative doodles with harsh black strokes of paint. He erases his doodled universe and replaces it with bold colours and elements reminiscent of previous works – rain, circles, etc.

The project marks the beginning of a new phase in Kavelaars' oeuvre, in which he not only creates animated murals, but also new kinds of paintings. Throughout the stop-motion animation, he replaces a black-and-white world with a new reality full of striking colours. However, when the animation stops, the work is far from done. This is only the starting point for something new. For experimentation. For a confrontation with his own work. For intuition and creativity. For his dogma.

Video Mapping: Mr.Beam

Music: Steve Mensink