02 november 2023, Wouter van den Eijkel
Resonance – Bram Braam
Resonance is the title of Bram Braam's new solo exhibition at Frank Taal. In it, personal memories and fragments from our landscape come together in a manner that we've come to expect from Braam, resulting in a perfect balance between found and created objects. The intersection between the real and fabricated is precisely what fascinates Braam, as it also mirrors aspects of our daily lives.
For the wall sculptures in Resonance, Braam used a photo transfer technique to print the works onto wood. He then intricately cut and assembled the wooden panels. It's a well-thought-out mix of technologies and constructions. We talked to the artist about his current home in Berlin, the urban landscape and his background in graffiti.
Bram Braam, Sunrise adventures #25, 2023, Frank Taal Galerie
Congratulations on your new exhibition, Resonance. What is resonating and with whom?
The landscape is resonating. The exhibition is a convergence of personal memories and fragments from our landscape. Photographic fragments from distant travels, as well as from my daily surroundings in Berlin, are combined. We live in a world in which everything constantly influences everything else, but different experiences, journeys and encounters offer a different perspective on our reality. How does this translate?
As always, your work focuses on architecture and the urban environment, a theme that is also found in Resonance. This time, however, the emphasis is on the interaction between the city and nature. Why did you want to explore this theme?
It's a theme that has always played a role in my work, though it may not always have been equally apparent. It featured prominently in my earlier work, such as when I created a mini volcano in a glass cube after the eruption of the volcano on Iceland. The theme of humans exerting control over the landscape and the impossibility of it has always been important to me. But it's also about how everything is interconnected, how humans and nature constantly influence each other, from the nitrogen crisis to global warming, natural disasters and the Covid-19 pandemic.
In your case, the urban environment is Berlin, where you've lived and worked for over ten years. What drew you there and how important is that specific environment to you?
After graduating from the Sint Joost Academy, I received a starting grant and almost immediately left the Netherlands. The raw, anarchic and industrial character of Berlin appealed to me. It's a city where not everything is as perfectly regulated as in the Netherlands, which brings a certain freedom for things to happen, from a DIY culture to small shops with handmade goods. I did an artist in residence at the time and ended up staying – it’s now been 13 years. The city will always inspire me, with its constant transformation, construction and deconstruction that never seems to end. It's a city that is always in motion.
Bram Braam, Resonance #6, 2023, Frank Taal Galerie
Resonance is being shown in Rotterdam, a city that shares similarities with Berlin. Could you imagine yourself working here as well?
Absolutely. People from the Netherlands often compare Berlin and Rotterdam and I can understand why. I also see a certain resemblance between these raw, unpolished cities.
You have a background in graffiti. Has that influenced how you perceive the urban environment?
Yes, absolutely. Immediately after graduating from the academy, I did not want to make a direct connection to my graffiti background in my work. But I was already interested in our urban landscape and architecture. Over time, I found that it returned and like with skateboarders, you start to see public spaces in a different way. I never wanted to create work that was a direct derivative of graffiti, not typographic lettering but more an observation of traces and surfaces, sometimes involving graffiti, but also other areas. In recent years, the theme of ‘Post Vandalism’ has become its own movement, partly due to the popular Instagram account of Stephan Burk, where he brings together lots of people, and we have organised exhibitions as a group. I previously exhibited in London and I just returned from Rome, where we had an exhibition with this theme at Contemporary Cluster.
Can you briefly explain what your art is primarily about?
I create work about our landscape and the traces that we humans leave in our environment. I’m fascinated by architecture and urbanity, which I connect with more natural aspects from our landscape. In general, my work is about a compressed reality, a reality that always consists of various objects, often combined. I often work with contrasts, merging surfaces or objects into a new reality. I also explore the boundary between abstraction and figuration and try to find the right balance. Balance, along with randomness and control, plays a crucial role in all my work.
Bram Braam, Landscape #1, 2023, Frank Taal Galerie
In terms of architecture, you often talk about a kind of assembled reality, such as a building that has been altered so many times that it's hard to determine its exact age. Do you believe something similar applies to nature in the urban environment? In other words, is it truly nature or is it nature adapted to our needs?
Absolutely. In this context, our Dutch identity and background as perfect planners and landscape architects play a significant role. Everything is malleable. I'm fascinated by the blurring of boundaries and how we perceive it: what is authentic and what is added? This reality applies not only to our landscape but also to our daily lives, online world and in the news. What am I looking at? Is this constructed? Is it real? Is it partly authentic and partly reconstructed? The boundaries blur. In my work, it's not always clear what you're looking at – is it found, ready-made or entirely constructed? In my work, these aspects intertwine. Everything may appear accidental, but is ultimately meticulously created down to the last detail using partly found materials.
Is that also what the installation with the slowly moving branch is about?
Partly. The installation is based on the notion of the slow motion of a branch swaying in the wind. It's a natural image, but played back in slow motion, similar to a film. The work is a poetic representation of the movement of nature and the influence of technology on our understanding of the world around us.
Bram Braam, Fluidity, 2023, Frank Taal Galerie
Order and structure always play a role in your work. You often refer to modernism and movements like De Stijl and Mondrian. What's new this time is the way the wall sculptures are assembled, consisting partly of fragments from photos of rock formations and partly from urban surfaces. How did you come up with the idea to bring these two subjects together in one work?
That’s right, in my wall pieces, I've allowed these different concepts, which were already present in my spatial work, to come together for the first time. Even in these initially chaotic-looking works, there is a precise balance. I've always been fascinated by rock formations, sculptures of time and, more specifically, surfaces and textures. I've been photographing these textures for a long time during my travels in Southeast Asia and Europe, representing a personal texture observation. I've also been taking pictures of walls and surfaces in the urban environment for quite some time. In this work, I bring these worlds together, creating a personal journey through time and a convergence of two extremes – the urban space and our natural landscape, inextricably linked.
For the wall sculptures, you use a photo transfer to print the work on wood. You’ve then cut and assembled these wooden panels. You combine analogue technology (cutting) with digital technology. What’s the idea behind this?
Very perceptive. People often associate me with work that involves extensive tactile materiality. In this work, the initial process is performed on a computer, but the images are then transferred to wooden panels using an indirect transfer process. This process creates a certain ‘noise’ and texture because the entire print isn't transferred perfectly. It gives the works a more sketch-like character and a more irregular surface. Afterwards, I cut everything into pieces, and, as in my previous work, I fit all the panels together, creating a flat surface similar to a painting, but with the cutting lines becoming part of the composition. So, I’m not really interested in creating a fully digital print. At the same time, when working on these pieces, I approach them like a painter and the scale of the different fragments is essential when I stand in front of the work. This is impossible to see on a screen.
Bram Braam, Sunrise adventures #18, 2023, Frank Taal Galerie
