Speaking forms / silent forms

Jan Van Alphen, 2003

Early this year, Maarten Stuer's work was eagerly discussed by the members of the jury of the Japanese art biennial 'Enku Grand Award'. This competition is reserved for the work of contemporary artists who bring up to date and redefine the legacy of Enku, the seventeenth century Japanese Buddhist monk, sculptor and shaman. Representations of humans, animals, gods and even spirits which have been reduced in form and substance to their ultimate essence.

Maarten Stuer has already attracted attention because his works are so closely linked to the ecological concerns of our time. Starting from the base element earth, he broadens the context of the substance clay to its widest possible dimension: our world and the universe.

Maarten Stuer surprises by revealing in his sculpture at such an early stage in his career the essence of things as transcendental.
In this exhibition the artist further refines his earlier thought and work. Where before he emphasised the influence of men on nature - as in his shaman tree with votive offerings - now he allows nature, plants and animals to speak entirely for themselves.
For many people the representation of a cow, or cattle in general, appears at first sight to have little to do with what has been said before. Nevertheless in many ancient civilizations this animal is the central element around which many aspects of their culture are built. We have only to think of the meaning of the holy cow in India, the bullfights in Spain, or the Minotaur myths in Crete.
Cattle - whether cows or bulls - are the symbol of fertility, of mother earth, but are also the symbols of power and energy. And from a more practical point of view, the draught animal, which, as sustainer of life, produces milk, meat, leather, plant food and fuel…

Even more than such explicitly emblematic creatures as the lion and the eagle, the cow has a cosmic connotation. Maarten Stuer gives this sculpture extra visual and tactile strength by piercing it. In this way the inner space of the cosmic cow becomes visible and tangible. The cosmic mist finds a way out and dissipates through the wide firmament embodied by the cow. The cow as the source of primordial life, or the cow as the source of the Milky Way. Depending on the light, the perforations are stars or black holes.

Light continues to play the leading role in 'Gaps in thick foliage'. The natural transparency of daylight or moonlight filters playfully through the foliage of trees. Rooted and grounded in the earth, trees are close to us; but with their leafy canopy they make an elusive display of heavenly light.

Maarten Stuer stays with this theme in 'Shadows of clouds gliding over dry land'. Clouds provide a shifting light-and-dark effect which creeps like a snake over the hills of the landscape.
Once again, earth, light and the firmament are linked together. For those who can see it, all things are interconnected. Those who do not quite see it are given a helping hand by Maarten Stuer.

J. Van Alphen

i