OPEN E.Y.E. : Further

After Gerard and Marc (our social media manager and photographer) started their OPEN E.A.R project I could not resist and do my own story. Since over a year I work with some great artists and graphic designers on various custom paint projects.

Unfortunately my music career came to a sudden end when my parents tried to motivate me to join the local "Dorf music ensemble" and I realised that the journey that ultimately would end in playing saxophone was to long or never ending.

But the respect for art and artist as well as good design never stopped and thats why i love projects like this one.

Let me share the story of Camille McMillan, an artist, blogger and avid cyclist.

Camille's idea of art: "Marcel Duchamp, famously announced that his work ‘The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even’ was only completed after the haulage company who took this, his (8 years) work, smashed it while installing it in a gallery. Duchamps genius was to bring the random or chance into his practice. He was announcing that the artist can use any medium, any act, as an art. This for me is what art is, it is anything that the artist says is art. I understand this can be easily derided, and often is."

Camille: "With my OPEN WIDE frame, I have a nagging feeling that it is not completed. I have a burning desire to sand back the paint, go back in time, cut through the layers of paint I covered the frame in. Possibly this is for the next frame.. maybe I pull this bike apart again and get to work on it again. Maybe. 

I love the random and chance. I like discovering things, exploring. I like loss of control and the regaining of control. This is why I love riding my bike. With the bicycle we explore, we find things and lose things. Often when riding we follow routes we often follow, like other riders have done before us and will do after us. Routes, like rivers, water or paint, follow the same contours that physics, gravity demand. Often we have an idea of the route we will take and stick to that route and there are subtle differences in a route we have taken many times. For the athlete, this is even more defined ‘ what the route will be’. The more professional the approach to cycling, the more craft you are. The more ' fuck it, whats down there?’, the more art is involved."

Camille: "My practice as an artist involves many aspects. Exploring landscape, making routes, finding my self and expression in the typography. Photography is a large part of what I do. And for the last few years I have been working with film more than ever. Please don't get me wrong, I am not a ludite. I have been using Photoshop since the early 90's and still have digital cameras. But I currently use a 1940’s folding medium format camera, no light meter and focus by guess and f stops. I no longer chase the perfect negative, I no longer look to Irving Penn or Ansel Adams. I believe contemporary computational photography has taken the shine from this. I look for the dirt, the fluff and the random. I am currently enjoying Miroslav Tichý’s process. Not his subject, his process. I like the things AI cannot be... beauty."