Interview anniversary issue Manera Magazine.
In Manera's special anniversary issue an interview with Jasper Krabbé about unfinished paintings, and the role of memory and chance in his work.
By Evelien Reich
Photos Marc de Groot
Surrounded by works in progress and found objects in his studio along the
North Sea Canal, artist Jasper Krabbé balances reason and pure emotion, searching for the elusive space where memory, raw canvas, and unscripted wonder meet.
Stepping into Jasper Krabbé’s studio at the historic Hembrugterrein, a sprawling former munitions factory just outside Amsterdam, feels like wandering into the storehouse of a remarkably cultured magpie. The vast space, supported by towering timber beams and lit by slanting roof windows, is filled with works in progress: half-finished canvases lean against the walls, piles of drawings spill across tables, and bales of old fabric sit ageing patiently until Krabbé decides their moment has come. Elsewhere, design chairs await painted interventions, while stacks of Clarks shoeboxes are transformed into miniature artworks for a collaboration with the footwear brand. One thing quickly becomes clear: Krabbé has a lot going on.
It comes as little surprise, then, that Krabbé himself radiates the same restless curiosity. In an art world often populated by world-weary pseudo-intellectuals, he feels like an exuberant anomaly. “I think I’m fundamentally anti-blasé,” he says, leaning back with a grin. “People who are jaded or cynical about the world... I don’t find them to be the best company, frankly.
“If you look with the wonder of a child,
with that beginner’s mind that says,
‘I’ve no idea what I’m looking at’...
that’s the exact moment you start seeing.”
Jasper Krabbé
Cynicism relies on the arrogant assumption that you’ve already seen it all, that everything just repeats itself. For me, it feels as if every single thing is brand new, all the time.”
To explain that mindset, he quotes Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by the late Zen master Shunryu Suzuki. “The moment you put a label on something – you look at a tree and instantly think ‘tree’ – you’ve stopped actually looking at it,” he says. “But if you look with the wonder of a child, with that beginner’s mind that says, ‘I’ve no idea what I’m looking at’... that’s the exact moment you start seeing.”
A recent trip to California, where he spent time drawing alongside his seven-year-old daughter, offered a lesson in unlearning adult artistic habits. “We sat down to draw the Pacific Ocean together,” Krabbé recalls. “I was doing what trained adults do: carefully observing the light, studying the angles of the rocks, and trying to be clever. She just picked up a blue crayon and started violently scribbling across the page. She wasn’t drawing the ocean; she was drawing the energy of the ocean. It was infinitely better than my neat little sketch.”
“The best things in life aren’t rational at all.
You get pulled toward them without knowing why.”
Jasper Krabbé
Highlighting intuition as a key theme in his process, Krabbé balances feeling the moment with deliberate control.
“The trick is to keep that balance between reason and pure emotion; otherwise, you simply can’t function,” he says.
“In my work, the starting point always lies in reality, in how I perceive it.” His paintings often sit somewhere between portraiture and abstraction, figures slowly emerging beneath translucent layers of paint.
That practice is rooted in years of rigorous classical training, expertise he wears without a trace of pretension. Combined with years working as a street-graffiti artist, it’s given him the capability to work quickly when needed – particularly when he’s on the road, travelling light with just some markers and watercolours, and drawing on anything that’s on hand from paper bags to cardboard boxes.
That past life as a street-graffiti artist continues to impact how he moves through the world. “I can’t walk through a city without thinking: ‘God, that’s a brilliant spot, that’s a gorgeous little wall.’” Many times, he takes pieces of these places home with him, like a beachcomber, finding treasure where others see junk.
“A few years ago, I was in New York and saw this restaurant being gutted. Right there on the pavement were these massive green canvas awnings, with that typical scalloped edge. Eight metres by three! A really nice size.”For what? Krabbé had no idea. He simply pulled out a pocketknife and began hacking the canvas from its steel frame right there on the pavement. “Suddenly I’m standing there with this absurdly heavy piece of cloth.
I had to buy an enormous duffel bag just to check it onto the flight home. It keeps happening, too. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I think I own twelve suitcases by now. It’s probably some kind of compulsion. But I always feel lucky when I come across these finds. I don’t see rubbish; I see an incredible weathered surface that’s already loaded with history before I even touch it with a brush.”
His urge to hunt for aged materials stems from a disdain for the pristine. He shuns neat, pre-primed canvases in favour of raw linen, cardboard, old curtains, and found collages.
“The second you paint something, the moment has already slipped into the past. That process is full of interference, a series of glorious glitches.”
He recounts a recent experiment involving a terrycloth bath towel. “I thought, ‘Let’s see what happens’, but it was an absolute catastrophe. The fabric just drank gallons of expensive paint, clogging up all the little loops.
“In my work, I’m chasing the feeling of a memory,” he says. “And memories are inherently damaged goods. The second you paint something, the moment has already slipped into the past. You’re trying to dredge it back up, and that process is full of interference, a series of glorious glitches. Painting on a rough collage or an old piece of stitched cloth gives you the gift of chance. The paint sinks in here, stays matte there, or runs off a glossy patch somewhere else.”
But the layer of glue and ragged textile scraps left behind on the wood when I ripped the towel off ? When I laid paint over that, it caught the surface in this utterly unpredictable, magnificent way.” That same willingness to trust non-rational impulses eventually led Krabbé to his current studio at Hembrugterrein. Securing the space initially seemed impossible; when he first enquired, he was simply told to “Get in line”. Somehow, though, he persuaded the owner to hand him the keys. The real surprise came while packing up his previous studio. Sorting through old papers, he uncovered a decades-old drawing of his ideal workspace. Looking around, he realised he was standing inside it. The proportions, the industrial scale, the slanting windows, even the exposed timber beams were all there.
“I can put a lot of ideas into my work, but if I didn’t feel them myself, you’ll never feel them as a viewer,” he says. “Then it just becomes rational. And the best things in life aren’t rational at all. You get pulled towards them without knowing why, but something happens to you. The world is full of wonder. You just have to be open to it.” jasperkrabbé.com
Manera's anniversary issue comes with a special dust cover featuring a surprise 'collectible artwork' printed inside, ready to frame.
Jasper Krabbé - Exclusive, limited-edition Dust Cover for Manera Magazine 05
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Jasper Krabbé - Collectible artwork printed inside Manera Magazine 05, ready to frame.
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