Frans Baake (born in Stad Delden in 1958) received his education at the AKI in Enschede and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Since the 1980s, he has focused primarily on creating artists’ books, combining linocuts and woodcuts with texts, photos, and drawings, all hand-bound by himself. Islands serve as a rich source of inspiration for him. In 1983, he made his first visit to the Faroe Islands, a treeless and windy archipelago located between Scotland and Iceland. Someone had told him beforehand: “There’s nothing to see there!” This observation and question have since stayed with him, becoming a recurring theme in his work. The concept of “nothing” takes on many forms for him. Over the years, he has visited places such as the Falkland Islands, the Aleutian Islands, St. Pierre & Miquelon, and Greenland. Thanks to a grant from the Mondriaan Fund, in 2017 he was able to reach a number of isolated islands in the southern Atlantic waters, including the remote Tristan da Cunha – a boyhood dream come true. After a long sea journey, he finally set foot on the distant island, a “destination of the mind.” Impressions of this trip were captured in the book “No where – now here,” a substantial tome that allows him to explore his fascinations with dreams and actions, (in)finitude and distance in time and space. In 2003, he spent a short period of time in New York, seeking peace in the bustling metropolis. This led him to City Island, an oasis in the Bronx. Last year, he was able to add Island City to his list – not even a physical island, but a place in Oregon. He was curious to experience what it would be like to be in a location with only the concept of an island in its name. As a result of both visits, two fold-out brochures were recently published, filled with his findings.
www.ftn-books.com has just added a new book to its inventory of Baake artist books.
