Jeroen Meijs

What I wonder is how visual observation and aesthetics are influenced by scientific thinking. What we see is not just the physical visibility of shapes, but also internal structures, mechanisms, chemical compounds, functions, mutual relationships, etc. We see what we know.

In my work, the emphasis is on intensifying the strong sensory experiences we find in children, but which are gradually eradicated as they develop into adulthood. Where the adult strives to achieve order, moderation and routine, the child lets itself be transported by the unknown and marvels at the wonderful world. At birth, each child brings with it in embryonic form the totality of possibilities, from which each culture and every period in history makes a selection, retains them and develops them. The adult is burdened with the conventional knowledge of things, which generalises the unique.

My work offers an opening to bore through this knowledge and discover the enchanted world and penetrate to the suppressed sensory experience. It is a search for the apparently unfamiliar within the familiar. We must let go of knowledge so that we can look “without knowing”. I disrupt familiarity with reality, mix patterns and retrieve elements at will. I then reconstruct them into new objects, whereby the material and execution are always aimed at generating strong physical experiences. Thus a new reality is created in which metaphysical experiences confront familiar scientific knowledge. Irony can be a means to invalidate current thinking patterns.