Jap Sam Books

Hier | Here - Frank Halmans

[Nederlandse editie]

Robbert Roos, Nils van Beek, Philip Peters, Tom van den Berge

Dutch artist Frank Halmans (Heerlen 1963)  has his own look at the built environment. In sculptures and models he examines the physical characteristics of the concept 'house'. In this monograph Frank Halmans will show a comprehensive selection of his drawings, sketches and drawings for the sculptures to organic projects, commissioned art works, and installations.

In Frank Halmans' work one often discerns a fascination for boundaries. Somewhere between present and past or between sleep and waking are little pieces of no-mans land. Halmans focuses on the twilight between memory and actual perception, and on the physical transition between inside and outside.

Quotes from the authors:

Nostalgia is a strong emotion in the oeuvre of Frank Halmans. His work is imbued with it, although not in a sentimental way. It is rather a form of continuously kissing awake the magic of the past.' – Robbert Roos

'Because of the shelter and intimacy it provides, the poetic work of Frank Halmans offers plenty of room for reverie. It provides a certain kind of escapism (…). There are also instances of das Unheimliche, the Uncanny, in the sense in which Sigmund Freund interpreted it when he characterised it as the fundamental characteristic of the familiar to become suddenly un-familiar and turn against its owners.' – Nils van Beek

'The work of Frank Halmans, although complex in its layered meanings, is about subjects such as decay, about not being reachable, about looking back, about le temps perdu.' – Philip Peters

'Frank Halmans' works bear witness to his strong urge to collect, inventorise, and classify the everyday, the ordinary.(…) His work calls forth the need to contemplate, to think about our own place in this world.' – Tom van den Berge