REVISIT EXQUISIT, 2010
Commissioned by de Service Garage
So one of the things I love most about the age in which we live is the rapid pace and expansive breadth of discovery that the Internet allows. It truly is a world-wide web, and it succeeds in widening my own web of consciousness daily. Today, for instance, I post in praise of a recent "discovery" (and I think for reasons fairly obvious to any regular social design reader): the Dutch graphic artist Michiel Schuurman, whose very groovy, eye-popping posters can often be found ornamenting the Amsterdam cityscape.
It's no secret we're keen on the graphic zip of an Op-Art accent around here. In fact, it was my very first post a year ago - one that celebrated the Italian Giallo starlet Rosalba Neri in a particularly arresting black & white number in the film Amuck - that advised to "USE GRAPHIC OP-ART PRINTS TO ENLIVEN AND CONTEMPORIZE AN INTERIOR, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO WEAR THEM YOURSELF..." Well, really, it was good advice then - and by then I mean last year and the Early Seventies - and it's still good advice now.
Schuurman's work calls into play all the classic, retina-tickling Op-Art tropes - but he very successfully integrates them into compositions that are in result electrifyingly contemporary and, in my esteem, without any particularly detractive sense of the derivative. Says the artist's website: Schuurman’s personal work specializes in typography and poster design which often boasts a rather maximalistic approach. His practice of combining bright colors, warped glyphs, harsh perspectives, and acidic patterns creates some awfully intriguing eye-candy, which he often screen prints himself.
Well, needless to say, I think his posters are terrific. Actually I'd very much like to enliven my own interior space with one - and really, I am very seldomly a framed poster kind of guy, so I hope that the extent of my endorsement of Schuurman's work is fully realized. But enough of me. A look at more of the artist's very stylish, very switched-on work...
Enjoy!
-a.t.s.
CURRICULUM VITAE - Written portraits - Louis Behre, 2011
Commissioned by the De Centrale Bibliotek Den Haag
PS PROJECTSPACE, 2010
Commissioned by Jan van der Ploeg.
This one was very appealingly hung in multiples, creating a continuous color-stripe effect.
HOFSTEDEROTH17:SOLO, 2011
Commissioned by de Service Garage, an Amsterdam gallery space
QUIET IS THE NEW LOUD, 2011
Self-commissioned
We Need a Whole Lot of Flowers, 2010
Commissioned by de Service Garage
DECODING, 2010
Commissioned for Graphic Design Festival Breda
Some of these editions are still available for purchase. Michiel Schuurman's website is at www.michielschuurman.com
