JAAK HILLEN . Processes in Wood
Processes in wood are themes that have persecuted me as a sculptor - artist for about fifteen years, after a period of mainly stone sculpting. What particularly fascinate me are the inherent natural forces in the materials, which then wait until they are discovered by humans and released again. The boundary between liberating and destroying is wafer-thin. You can make materials visible in their radiating splendour and strength them so that they can last for hundreds of years. Or you can sacrifice them for an abstract idea, or for industrial needs, which often destroy their very essence.
What made me work with wood, opposed to stone, are the living processes that are far more tangible in this material and that have a resemblance to human life. Wood is sown, it grows and flourishes, and it seeds and dies. We do that as humans too. If we take this phenomenon seriously, we cannot help but admit that this is a mystery.
As an artist you come across these living processes. It is impossible not to meet them. You encounter the wood in all its stages and facets: being young and flexible, branching, as trunk, thick and bulky, crooked or straight, with or without side branches and splits, old and dilapidated, rotting or weathered, burned, etc. Then we are not even taking all the types of wood into consideration; the fact that they all have their own atmosphere, require a different treatment and inspire in a different way. I work with these elements as an artist. The material, in this case wood, is my main source of inspiration.
I fill this source with my own inspirations. It is, as it were, a container for it, like a vessel that asks to be filled. That's how you enhance the material. You lift it into a state it could not have reached without human intervention. It's a humanization or spiritualization.
Last year, a new step was added to these processes. Some of my pieces were on their way on being taken back by nature with the help of moisture, worms, mould, ... In this way they became so graceful that I decided to let them go through fire for a second time, this time as metal (bronze). It is a way of putting an end to the process, casting it and giving it an eternal life by showing the beauty of all previous steps. Some other pieces are given back to nature.
When working with these processes I like to be inspired by what has traditionally been called, the four elements; earth, water, air and fire. The Chinese see a fifth element; wood, which contains all other elements. You can experience that when working with wood in several ways:
• Soil can be found in the roots and in the bark. But you can also find it in the solid block. You encounter this element especially with a sawn block. When sawing you give the wood a specific form, you make it motionless and stiff. This is sometimes necessary, especially for making objects. Further I work with earth to extinguish and to control the fire.
• You encounter water in that which flows, in the movement, the fibres, the growth directions and curves, in that which is streamlined, ... Wood is rarely straight. It has found its way and it has taken its time. You will also find the flowing of water in the flowing of wood.
• You mainly encounter lightness in the way a tree penetrates the space. Each tree does this in a different way; the birch, airy and supple, the oak, heavy and knotty, the spruce, straight and dark, the beech, overwhelming and taking up space, the ash, open and receptive, allowing light to pass through. Each type of wood shows its own gesture in the way it enters space.
• You encounter less heat in the wood itself, but more in the flower and fruit forms. You come across them in the visible changes brought about by the seasons. The impact on the leaves is rather fleeting. They fall every year and decompose on the soil, also a heat process. The needle types are an exception. They store the heat in the form of resins. Birch trees also store heat in the form of oil in the bark.
What you also find in the warmth aspect is in the individual identity of a wood species. This is difficult to explain. If you feel warmth or enthusiasm for something, in this case for a plant, you can meet it as a being. You learn to understand it from within, from its essence. As a result, you will have enormous respect. You realize that there are forces of nature that have moulded themselves into a certain identity.
These elements inspire you as an artist. You cannot withdraw from the form, the movement, the gesture and the identity of a tree or a type of wood.
I also work very literally with these qualities. Over the years, a process was developed that made it possible to mould wood from the inside to the outside by means of fire. To control this process, I use clay to open and close holes, water for tempering, air to fan and to guide the fire. A tree trunk becomes a kind of tree stove, as it were that consumes itself in a controlled manner. I then answer to this inner shape from outside by sculpting, by sawing it open and then putting the pieces back into relationship with each other. In this way I can realize depth and space inwardly, what a tree does outwardly in a natural way. It is a sort of an inversion process.
Themes that are added to the wood during the work, coming from myself are:
• Bowl shaped forms where you feel that they have enclosed life
• Double or triptych in the form of panels or hinged shutters that sometimes become a bit mystical
• Monumental upright towers that elevate a person
• Tree stoves where inner combustion can be experienced
• Boat shapes, also called manboats, which enter into a relationship with indefinite destinations
• Egg-like shapes that remind one of burgeoning life
• Encounters between multiple parts of a trunk that feel like human encounters.
The human being is always in the foreground in my own themes. A tree cannot become human by itself. But as a human being I can give him a new perspective in evolution on condition that I understand him. And that is only possible through warmth, from one’s heart.
— Jaak Hillen
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