A BEAUTY BEYOND
THE JAUNT: FORMA SERIES 

ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE

Leading up to the trip, I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I had planned to see a couple different areas that were pretty different from one another (Corn Island, Masaya and Granada). While reading about Nicaragua or talking with people about it, I heard very different things. Ranging from “it’s an absolutely beautiful place” (which it is!) to watch out for land-mines or the kissing bug aka assassin bug. All in all, it was a pretty wide spectrum of possibilities.

One of the things that struck me almost immediately was how bright and vibrant the cities were, and how much color was really celebrated in the communities. You could walk up any block and literally every home would be a completely different color palette from the one next to it. All rich and vibrant with their own personalities, and then as you reach the end of the block, the next block is completely different from the one you were just on. It was really beautiful.
 
While I was there one of the overwhelming things I noticed was that the cities don't take on much uniformity within them. The buildings are all wildly different colors, the sidewalk tiles are often mismatched, the signage is mostly hand-painted. It gives an impression that everything is very unique. So when I was thinking about the final edition, this stuck out to me and started to influence the way I was thinking about the piece and eventually the overall approach. In the end, I decided on not making an edition as planned but a series of unique 6" x 6" wooden tiles, each completely different from one another in both form and color. 

END RESULT

ABOUT THE JAUNT

The Jaunt is a project by Jeroen Smeets, who acts as the curator and travel planner of the project. With a background in art ranging from editor-in-chief, to agent and gallery owner (and a variety of jobs in between) Jeroen started The Jaunt in the beginning of 2013. In essence The Jaunt is a project that wants to create opportunities and possibilities for artists. The core of the project is to let artists travel the world in order to become inspired, but hopefully the experience has an effect on the artists that transcend that limited time frame and expand into their artistic practice as a whole. In this way The Jaunt wishes to become a catalyst for progress and new insights into the creative process of our artists. The first step of this process is taking the artist outside of their comfort zone and let them experience completely new surroundings.

For more info about the Jaunt click here.