Bart Jansen, 1979
I live and work in The Netherlands.

My projects are mostly inventions that automate byproducts of human activity: The machines embrace the errors that surround our hysterical race for technological progress and highlight situations that show the skewed balance between what we like to achieve and what we actually achieve. The installations are new machines. One condition goes: they must be operational. Like any other invention the machines are about easing our lives. Devices that fulfill functions. These functions, however, tend to be rather questionable. And thus the machines deliver their own fatuous criticism towards the human world.

The paintings point out old masters like Velazques, Manet, Ingres. Objects like machinery and modern tools are added to the classical images, sometimes honoring the original composition. In these works modern society gets introduced within our cultural heritage, resulting in new images and stories.