In his practice, Ammerlaan strives to capture the constant flux of our material reality while exploring the properties of abstraction. Matter serves as a means to depict the world beyond the confines of the studio, with the cosmos forming the very backdrop of his contemplations. While inspiration is drawn from immeasurable stretches of seeming emptiness, what is captured isn't a limitation, but a boundless realm of opportunities—a narrative to which we belong and from which we emerged.
"Lead was not born as lead. Lead was born as uranium. So in the explosion of a star, a supernova, uranium is created and over a million years it decays into lead.
So you could say that lead in its presence, how it is used for example in a nuclear context or a medical context as an apron against radiation, is actually transformed into the protector against its former self. I think that's a very nice starting point to see if you can't do something with that material as an artist." - Frank Ammerlaan