Frans Muhren

Frans Muhren has been trained as a sculptor and since the seventies – he was born in 1949 - has used all kinds of materials, in the first years mainly wood. Later on he also worked with synthetic stuff and nowadays for the most part with iron. Being a painter as well, he often uses colour on his sculptures. His themes are movement (or the suggestion of it), contradictions (such as heavy and light, convexe and concave, abstract and epic) and the possibilities of matter; he also likes to tell small stories, sometimes etching characters in his sculptures. In the more absurdist pieces amazement about mankind seems to be a recurring element. In 2012 Frans started with his series of coloured streamers, which are abstract and sort of mathematical; as a counterpart he works on rusty iron sculptures, that reflect impermanence and "silent poetry". The way Frans works is very intuitive. He doesn’t make sketches but just begins to work with the material. An image should be interesting from all sides and spatiality plays a major role.