Facing Seoul 19

In childhood, one encounters and experiences many things for the first time. Through curiosity and imagination, these moments are lifted to almost magical heights. As you get older, new impressions become more scarce and it's a rare experience to be surprised by anything.  Raymond Lemstra tries to bring back the sense of wonder we remember from being a child, bridging the young and mature, by creating a contained fantasy world populated by my characters.

With his work, he likes to refer to the illustrative nature of primitive drawings and sculptures. What he finds interesting about these is the distortion as a result of selective emphasis; parts of interest are emphasized, unimportant parts reduced or left out. For characters this means they come out big headed, where the focus is on the face and the body is trimmed to its essential properties. He deliberately applies this primitive logic as a method. But he don't apply it equally to all aspects of his work. Instead, he choose to use a very mature, highly laboursome technique for the execution of his work. This contrast, between the naive and sophisticated, gives the work a somewhat awkward taste. A clash of intent, simultaneously assuming simplicity and complexity, randomness and reason, flaws and perfection. The purpose of this is to inspire a sense of joy and discovery.