tamara dees

///about Oban

project 2010-ongoing

print About Oban (three boats)

57 variaties of the size Oban

Debussy (standing on the left) and Tjaikovsky in Debussy's office where he composed La Mer with no seaview but Hokusai's Great Wave on the wall.

Multiple 'about Oban', 29.7x42 cm, handcoloured, edition 50+1AP

november 2010 Virtual Art Residence March-April 2011 Gist, Hulst (NL) May-June 26 2011 residency at KipVis, Vlissingen 17/18 september 2011 part of the research was shown during The Lost Relay during Incubate Festival in Argument, Tilburg

Installation in KipVis Vlissingen (NL)

During a stay in the 'Virtual Art Residence' of Kipvis in November 2010 I started to study the size of the famous Japanese print 'The Great Wave of Kaganawa' from Katsushika Hokusai. The size of this picture, called Oban, is a Japanese woodblock print size but the dimensions vary greatly. Looking for the true dimensions of this size I found almost sixty variatons. During my search I came across several stories related to the name Oban. I found that the Scottish harbor town Oban was departure point for Jules Verne's book 'The Green Ray'. This story is about a phenomenon at sunset, a green flash can be seen under optimal conditions. The book contains a picture of a boat in trouble in a big wave at the first page. The study yielded many stories related to Oban and a lot of information so I decided to start to find out how this could be transformed into an exhibition. I call this serie 'Etude' because it give space to experiment in making exhibitions with different aspects of the research about Oban. In March I presented after a working period in Gist, Hulst (NL) the first Etude (about Oban), which examined how these stories could come together in an exhibition. In may I had the opportunity to do a residency at Kunstwerkplaats Kipvis. The gueststudio was big enough to find out what I could do with the real size of the representation on the print 'The Great Wave off Kaganawa'. What happens if you blow up the print to the full size again? How does it feel to be in the middle of the Great Wave ? What is the real essence of this dramatic picture? In response to these questions I made the installation 'about Oban' in the guest studio.

Installation in KipVis Vlissingen (NL)