Piet Jan started his artistic carreer making;
paintings ( water paint, oilpaint and other mixed techniques ),
etchings, silkscreens, jewelery ( silver, acrylic and rubber ),
bronze sculptures and kinetic objects.
He was a member of the artist union "BBK 69" (1970-1989 ).
He has been teaching at the Folk High School in Bergen n.h.,
the N.S. training school for teachers in Haarlem
and the International Make Up Art School in Koln - Germany.
Piet Jan Blauw has highly sensitive antennae wich serve him. His multi-facetted
work is
strongly devoted to communication in a rapidly changing society. Visual artist,
musician,
the inventor of instruments and installations: this amiable artist from the
North Holland
town of Hoorn is impossible to pigeonhole. He's always had an aversion to
categories.
He quickly developed a love for interactive media. Blauw explains " I
was looking for
other means to communicate, because the language didn't seem to achieve what
I wanted.
Later on, I began to identify with the objects I created. I wanted to feel
what I had made ".
Blauw's vision is not just the mere manipulation of technological gadgets.
Their use is
meant to ultimately evoke an emotional response from the audience and spur
them on to
discover lost domains within themselves. His objects are of sophisticated
craftmanship. Blauw's instruments produce archetypal sounds. The didgeridoo
he built from aluminium
also serves as a cello and a berimbau. Little details defy the ideal. His
music can never
be played in exactly the same way and demands improvisation. He sculpts sound-scapes
as he plays. He can manipulate radiowaves with the inpedance of his body.
Seemingly
anonymous ultrasonic waves are invoked into being by Blauw's conjurations.
This results
in a pantheon of sounds that are ministered by samplers, sequencers, and
processors.
He drives his own aural sculptures to their limits in every performance.
Technology enables
him to push the limits, yet he always uses it as a tool of creation.