Theory and Filosophy

Rhizomatic Art with respect to content, vision and meaning

My inspiration
Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) was professor of philosophy at the university of Paris VIII Vincennes (later St. Denis) from 1969 to 1987. He is widely recognized as one of this era’s most original thinkers.
In 1980 Deleuze wrote that a “rhizome” was something with countless possible entry points and routes, which differ in meaning and appearance but are of equal validity.
It implied that you can always (time) enter somewhere (place) and then take a different route through an image (space). You experience different things time and again, and gradually grasp a non-static image by exploration.
A rhizome runs counter to things having a fixed meaning.
To me, Ernst Bosch, this way of thinking is of the utmost value.

Rhizomatic thinking does not depend on fixed points. Everything is constantly in movement along lines that are always forming patterns together, - patterns that themselves continually change - and keep giving rise to new manifestations.
The combination of two images produces a new image. If this image is cut in two somewhere, the result is two new images wich bear a relation to the original –but are different -. Continual repetition of this process eventually creates a view of the image as a whole.
- The subject matter, the form, the patterns, the coherence and the ranking of lines and structures in a mobile process of change, all contribute to the formation of the rhizome.

Rhizomatic thinking in my art
My Rhizomatic paintings are intended to clarify elements that escape codes. “Deterritorialization” = unlanding; thisness = the uniqueness of this; chaosmos = .........
Perception in the sense of seeing also means emotional experience and intuition, sensation and thoughts provoked by the image (and its consequences), and the non-rational and unexplainable. Then there is also the (cultural) form and will to have that perception. Rhizomatic thinking is not constrained by common sense, logic, dogma, assumption, or policall views. It is not linear or confined to a single form and it is not static.
The Rhizomatic philosophy of Gilles Deleuze clarifies all, once grasped in its entirety.

What lies beneath
Man occupies the face of the earth.
Through all evolutionary history, man has never left that surface. We do not live underground and we cannot fly. Our nature is attuned to the surface. Our visual perception, the power of sight is also gauged to the surface.
As long as we do not move our eyes, we see a horizontal angle of about 60 degrees, but a vertical angle of only 10 degrees. We can turn our eyes and head together more than 180 degrees to survey our surroundings horizontally. It is far more easy to do that, then to look from our toes to vertically above our head.
So we experience the earth not as sphere but as a plane that ends at the limit of our field of view, at the horizon.

When you look at a rhizomatic painting, you experience a plane in which you can walk around. Walking and looking in that rhizomatic painting, you move in a true mathematical plane. The image can be seen from all directions and changes from viewpoint to viewpoint – You walk freely in an open country -.
This picture plane of a rhizomatic painting is too flat to imitate the reality of the human – the natural - plane. A third dimension represented in a drawing by means of perspective never forms an obstacle. Only a real third dimension can provide that;
- A PLANE WITH 3D –
- A 3-DIMENSIONAL PLANE –
- An irregular plane with bumps and pits, undulating and hilly with obstacles.
- And than, to assemble and paint onto that surface !-
The outcome is a rhizomatic three-dimensional painting which the spectator experiences emotionally as plane but which has three dimensions!
When you look at that painting, you see an image which contains obstacles that mask a part of the image. You see the concealed part only when you walk on and pass the obstacle. 
- This is the rhizomatic 3-dimensional painting which satisfies all aspects of human seeing!

- The relation between the rhizome and seeing is there.

- The main thing, according to Gilles Deleuze, is “to figure it out”
* TO ARRIVE TO A RESULT *

Importent books of Gilles Deleuze and his co-authors:

“Rhizome” (with Félix Guattari), 1976, Les ÉditionsMinuit, Paris.
- also available in Dutch, English and other languages.

”Mille Plateaux” (with Félix Guattari), 1980, Les Édition Minuit, Paris,
- includes a Revision of “Rhizome”.
- also available in English.

”Dialogues” (with Claire Parnet), 1977. Éditions Flammarion,
- also available in Dutch, 1991, Kok Agora

Books of other inspiring authors / philosophers:

Paul Valéry, “Monsieur Teste”, 1946, Éditions Gallimard,
- also available in English.

André Breton, “Nadja”, 1928, Édition revue par l’auteur, 1998, Gallimard
- available in several languages.

Georges Bataille:
“ Le blue du Ciel”, 1957, Éditions 10/18.
“ Les Larmes d’Eros”.