Click here to view the exhibition on Gallery Viewer
Artist Mike Ottink is delighted with the experiment of a non-physical exhibition. “Physical work on paper has the disadvantage that it is vulnerable and must be preserved. Moreover, the internet has no frames and an HTML page can run infinitely outside the screen”. This statement is characteristic of Ottink. In his work he pays a lot of attention to sensory perception. In this way he investigates how to express the invisible or inaudible. In addition, Ottink starts from Albert Einstein's statement: "It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses worlds are hidden of which we are unaware." With his work, Ottink wants to "look beside the obvious". People are very good at recognizing patterns - so apt, in fact, that we actually do it subconsciously. We subconsciously complete patterns in our brain and assign meaning to them.
Ottink wants to expose the boundaries of perception and "catch himself in his subconscious state, and anticipate reflection and interpretation." You can partly see how Ottink sets out to do so by the titles of his work. Almost all of them bear a title that relates to a physical or alchemical phenomenon, such as Saturation and Gravity or Chemical Atmosphere. Ottink devises strategies to bypass control of his work process. He succeeds, among other things, by making his own tools and handling processes whereby the works and compositions create themselves.
Photo by Tamar Ottink