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Paul Kaptein is an Australian contemporary artist. His work explores ideas of Emptiness and the agency of the present.
Dr. Ric Spencer describes Paul’s work by saying, “Paul’s work, seemingly bent through time and space, taps into this medium of emptiness, responding to the gap between immateriality and materiality – through the energy we call potential. His work is full of the boundless energy of potentiality loops or loops of potentiality or the realization that potential is the energy that constantly moves and transforms. Potential is the force that grabs ideas and translates them into being – it is a poetic energy of necessity and a necessary energy for poetics. The humor in Paul’s work belies a deeper investigation into and engagement with streams of newness, such as sub-cultural currents, locational politics, popular physics, transient spiritualism and the accumulation and residue of overheard broadcasts. Fundamentally – it is concerned with the relationship between the immaterial and the material, the gap in between and how potential shifts energy through this space – into being, or as Heidegger calls it ‘the material space of radiance’, as it becomes something and forms identity. His work is abreast of issues as they relate to life now, but also very aware of how quickly potential moves things along, producing constant slippage.”