World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 515 - Stephan Konings

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 515 – Stephan Konings

I walk with Stephan Konings along a number of selected works in the exhibition space next to his studio in Bos en Lommer in Amsterdam. A number of works in large format (181 x 141 cm) and a number in smaller format (143 x 110 cm and 54 x 68 cm). I see intriguing gold and silver-colored shapes with large and smaller circles in them of different colors on a black background that evoke worlds. Sometimes you see a human figure in it, then an animal figure and then a planetoid in it.

Stephan: “Every viewer sees something different in it. That has to do with the background and the art experience of the person in question. If I haven’t seen a work of mine for a while, and then look at it again after a few months, I sometimes even see something new in it.” The works often have a title that refers to Greek mythology or psychology.

Mica pigments

The works are made on aluminum panels with wide sides. Stephan paints with metallic paint and paints an organic complex structure. He finally finishes it with a crystal clear epoxy layer, which enhances the vibrancy of the colors and enhances subtle details of underlying layers. He also uses mica pigments, especially in the circles. These pigments can change color, depending on the incidence of light. This gives a dynamic and sparkling effect.

What are these works about? Stephan: “The central theme in my work is Apofation & Suspicion: the suspicion of meaning in seemingly random structures. My paintings consist of a central shape, the paint of which has an apophenic structure. I place colored circles over this shape in an abstract pattern, which is not random, but is meaningfully connected to the underlying shape. This play between structure and chance, between the suspicion of a system and its subjective interpretation, forms the core of my work.”

Searching for patterns

So apophenia is the search for patterns and meanings in something chaotic, compare it to the Rorschach test or Rorschach inkblot method, where the viewer is asked what it could represent. Stephan: “We humans are meaning seekers. Apophenia is a fundamental aspect of our perception: we see patterns in clouds, faces in rocks and structures in chaos.”

This mechanism is inextricably linked to the way we understand the world, he continues. “My work uses this tendency; the paint of the central form provokes a reaction in which the viewer thinks he recognizes something, even if there is no ‘real’ meaning. This makes each painting a mirror of the viewer’s subjectivity. Beauty in this sense is nothing more than the suspicion of a hidden system, a promise of meaning that is just out of reach. This fascinates me, because it says something not only about art, but also about how we as humans navigate in a world full of incomplete information.”

Does Stephan have a key work, and if so, which one?

His key work is not a single painting, but a discovery, he says. “The moment I discovered the metallic paint with a special structure, and realized that it in itself evokes an apophenic reaction in the viewer. This was a turning point in my work, because it gave me the opportunity to make paintings that are not just a composition, but a process; an experience in which perception and interpretation coincide. In this way, I can actually take the viewer along in the process of my creation. From that moment on, I have worked on refining this balance between chance and order, between abstraction and association. Each painting is a key work in that sense, because it is part of an ongoing system in which the meaning is constantly re-formed in interaction with the viewer.

”

How long has he been an artist?

He says that he has always been an artist in the sense that his way of perceiving and thinking is inextricably linked to his person. “During my education at the Rietveld Academy I learned the language and principles that go with it. That was an enlightening period for me. Over the years after the academy I have developed my own visual language that does not entirely correspond to usual artistic traditions, but that comes from my own research into patterns, meaning and perception.”

He has been a ‘wildposter’ in Amsterdam for quite some time, and that has partly shaped his perspective. “For me, art is not something that necessarily has to fit or resonate within institutional frameworks. I have stayed in my studio for a long time, but now the time has come for me to let the work out into the world, that is ultimately part of it… The seen only exists by the grace of the seer.”

Punk band

Stephan is also a drummer in a punk band, Sonic Deaf Squad. Walking around the exhibition space I saw the studio in a side room with, among other things, a drum kit, which Stephan plays. Among the links below is one with the music of the band. It is fairly symphonic punk music.

Finally, what is his philosophy?

“Art is not a fixed object, but an event. My paintings are not images in the classical sense, but situations in which meaning is temporarily formed and then dissolved. The painting, but also the paint structure in my work, functions as a mirror: often each viewer sees something different, depending on his own frame of reference.”

He already talked about how beauty is the suspicion of a hidden system. Can he elaborate on that a little bit? He’s happy to do so.

“The experience of beauty is not about what is literally there, but about the promise that there is something to discover. My work functions as a trigger for this search for meaning; but without offering a fixed answer. Because as soon as the underlying system is fully known, the tension disappears. This makes art, like our way of perceiving, a process that never ends and always relates.”

Images

1)54 x 68cm, 2) 143 x 110cm, 3) 181 x 141cm, 4) 143 x 110cm, 5) 143 x 110cm, 6) 143 x 110cm, 7) 54 x 68cm, 8) 54 x 68cm, 9) 54 x 68cm, 10) portrait photo Stephan Konings

www.stephankonings.com
https://www.instagram.com/stephan_konings
https://sonicdeafsquad.bandcamp.com/album/the-basement-tapes-recordings-from-the-vault
https://www.gallery238.com/en/kunstenaars/stephan-konings/
https://inzaken.eu/2025/02/27/stephan-konings-schoonheid-is-het-vermoeden-van-een-verborgen-systeem/