Systeemplafond
Systeemplafond, 2022
My strongest memory of the ceiling went like this:The memory is from, let’s say, 7 years ago in high school. I was sitting in the classroom of economics. Mees was sitting in front of me. He was always a bit of a cool guy. Making fun during class, annoying the teachers, you know, that kind of stuff. He played with a “geodriehoek” triangular ruler during this class. I think Miko, who was sitting next to him, told Mees that he heard that if you throw it fast and hard enough it will stick into the ceiling. So, of course, Mees wanted to try this. When the teacher was facing the other way, Mees threw it in the air into the ceiling and it was stuck. A month later at least 10 of them were in the ceiling because everyone wanted to try this themselves. This particular image is still in my mind.
I started reconstructing this ceiling by drawing on paper with a pencil. Trying to recreate the shape of the sprinkles that the ceiling has. The most direct way I thought. I noticed that my pencil drawing looked a lot like little pieces of shredded paper. Using actual paper and redoing this process I felt like I came closer to the actual ceiling. However by looking more closely and trying to think back at the memory, the pieces felt too big and the colour was off. I decided to create another possible version, with smaller pieces and different colours. It did work. The smaller pieces for sure, but the colours not really. A possible solution was to scan it in greyscale and look at it again. Yes! I was on the right path. Only one more thing I wanted to try out. I did not like the “whitespace” in between the pieces of paper, so I added white paper sprinkles and two different greys, mixed it, and looked at the result. This is what I wanted; it connected to my memory of it. It felt right. Sometimes I need to see it physically before I can get it vivid mentally. Later, I made a model of the ceiling to get more of a feeling. And in the end, I applied this research on the suspended ceiling to a bigger painting of another place.
