AIRCO CARAVAN

ARTIST STATEMENT:

My move from Amsterdam to New York in 2022, a long-time dream, wasn’t just fun. The first thing I had to buy was a spray can of Raid, to get rid of the roaches. Unpleasant, but very effective.

It brought me to the idea of a new body of work. As an activist and feminist conceptual artist, I want to create art contributing to a better world. And wouldn’t it be convenient if we could spray away all nasty things in our society? Just like killing bugs? So I created a growing series of over 140 products for a better world. Bold, humorous, and colorful.

I digitally design the spray cans and bottles and execute them in various mediums: pasted posters and stickers, paintings, wallpaper, laser-cut plexiglass with gemstones, labeled spray cans, solid cast resin spray bottles, animated 3D rendering, vanes, and wall tapestries: Airco Caravan’s Pest Control. Pest AC. For A Better World.

This body of work builds upon previous social justice series. Like oil paintings on cut-out panels and on raw linen questioning whitening products. And the anti-racism series that I made with band-aids in skin tones from beige to brown and black - which were hard to find before the BLM protests in 2020. I protested against the pro-life movement by using their scary silicon fetuses for the opposite message: pro-abortion. I developed a cradle-to-cradle paintbrush, by making it with my own ‘homegrown’ hair. 

When I developed a project about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I had many insights about racism, white privilege, and inequality and I want to bring this message across. Because still, today, white people have to be educated.

I will continue creating disruptive and unexpected art to make people think. Because I believe that art can make a difference.

Bio:

Airco Caravan earned a BA at HKU, Academy of Arts Utrecht, the Netherlands. After a career in advertising and graphic design, Caravan returned to art, studied silk screening at MK24 in Amsterdam, and oil painting at The Art Students League of New York. Caravan has participated in exhibitions in Museum de Fundatie, MOTI Museum, Amsterdam Museum, MOYA Vienna, Arte Museum Korea, and Museum of Memory and Tolerance, Mexico City. Solo shows in Amsterdam and New York. Caravan’s artworks are included in museum collections in the US and Europe.

Attention-grabbing guerrilla art in the public domain, including an illegal 4ft bronze statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The artist was invited to artist residencies in de Torenkamer, Amsterdam, and Buddha In The Line, in solitude in a bunker.

Caravan was the founder and curator of two Nasty Women Amsterdam fundraiser exhibitions and curator of several group shows.