A man sits on the stump of a tree trunk and plays a singing saw. As if mourning the sawn-down forest.
The small painting is a typical Teun Hocks (1947 – 2022). On almost all his works he has depicted himself, as a man lost in reality who has begun impossible tasks.
In another painting he looks at the starry sky with dustpan and brush in hand, ready to sweep up all the falling stardust. Or he stands on a small ladder and sticks his head into a painting at an exhibition, to look behind the image.
‘Put it all together and it becomes something’
Atypical for Hocks is the execution of this work ‘Singing Saw’. His fame comes from the use of mixed techniques. First he painted a background in black and white on thick paper. That could be a seascape, for example, with a sailing ship in the distance, with a plume of smoke rising from the chimney. With real shells and buckets of sand he suggested a beach. Then he photographed himself, despairingly staring at that ship on the horizon, with an enormous smoking pipe in his mouth. Old-fashioned leather suitcase in front of him. He then printed that image in black and white on large format photo paper, after which he colored the photo transparently with oil paint, applied with a self-made cotton swab.
When several Dutch museums showed his work simultaneously, he provided the most memorable review himself: “I’m a frustrated set designer, mediocre painter and clumsy photographer, but put it all together and it becomes something.” In an interview he also once characterized his approach as “a tinkered reality. It remains a bit theatrical.”
For all the sawn-down trees
The ‘Singing Saw’ differs in technique from the rest of his oeuvre, making it a special production. It is a work made in an edition of 150 pieces, of which I got number 75 on kunstveiling.nl. The work had previously been part of the art collection of employers’ organization VNO-NCW, as appears on the documentation on the back of the plank. Hocks did not paint all ‘singing saws’ by hand, but this time used a digital printing technique. However, the shape of each work is unique, as each print was made to fit on a piece of rough plank with bark about half a meter long.
The double meaning of this work makes ‘Singing Saw’ a very special Hocks. The artist suggests that quite a few sawn tree trunks were needed to make this work in this edition. It adds an extra tragicomic dimension. The Netherlands was once a river and tidal landscape that was almost completely forested. Not much of all those forests remains outside the current nature reserves, now that every square meter is economically used for housing, business buildings, roads or agriculture.
100 years of surrealism
Hocks is therefore not so otherworldly after all, even though he has been recorded as a contemporary surrealist (now an art movement more than a century old, with ever new representatives, such as the filmmaker David Lynch of ‘Twin Peaks’). Hocks was even compared to the Belgian painter René Magritte, which he never wanted to confirm. In an interview: “Surrealism, hasn’t that already been done? I am an admirer of it, and my work smells of it, but I want to stay away from it.”
A beautiful short documentary about Hocks was made by Pieter Verhoeff, in the series Dutch Masters. Verhoeff shows Hocks at work, including worrying and moments when all sorts of things go wrong. Hocks first forgets to install the self-timer on his camera, only to then also not take off his heavy black glasses during the shot. Finally he also drops his heavily smoking pipe. “Shit. Idiot.”
No grand statements
Hocks’ opening line in this film shows great modesty: “I don’t make grand statements about my work myself. I think the image should do that.” Detail: on the chosen music under this documentary a singing saw sounds. In a later fragment in this film, Hocks dressed in a lumberjack shirt plays the saw himself, in the same painted landscape with sawn-down trees of this artwork (at 5:00 minutes).
That’s why on Wowwood.nl this tribute to this great modest artist, who put so much humor in his work. There aren’t many modern artists who dare (or can) do this. Wim T. Schippers is one, Kamagurka and Herr Seele in Belgium, and wood artist Stephan Balkenhol in Germany certainly too, but that’s largely where it ends. Hocks has less trouble with a comparison to the classic ‘silent film’ comedian Buster Keaton than with his kinship to Magritte. “It would be great if my work comes close to that. Wonderful, that imperturbability. He believes in what he does. Everyone sees it going wrong, except himself.”
Rather a good loser
It is human inadequacy that Hocks has made the theme of his work. Almost apologetically: “And you’re allowed to laugh at that. I think that’s very healthy. It’s always more fun to watch a good loser than a winner. That’s what I secretly think.”
Of all the different techniques Hocks used, wood carving is not one. But because the ‘Singing Saw’ is about trees and Hocks mounted the work on a wooden ‘natural plank’ with bark, this artwork belongs in this personal gallery of honor of wood artists, I think.
To quote Hocks himself, after applying the last strokes of oil paint to the beach photo with sailing ship: “Well, I think I’ve got it.”
Hocks also made a video himself in which he plays the singing saw.
