Jorrit Paaijmans’ work raises questions on the effect of mechanization on labour. He presents handmade machines that produce drawings. Drawing is often described as an expressive and personal art form as it exposes the hand of the artist unmediated. Paaijmans interest however is not centered on showing anything personal in his drawings. Rather he explores the process of drawing from concept to final result. He employs technology to come to the essence of drawing.
His handcrafted machines present the figurative elements that make up drawing: dot, line, plane. Though the actual act is outsourced to a machine, it is the artist who makes and conceives of the machine. The are kinetic sculptures of which each screw is screwed in by hand. Paaijmans shift the focus from end result to the production process. It is the creator, machine and observer that over time give meaning to the final result.

Linearis Objectum is a series of drawing machines focusing on the drawing line, deploying it as an autonomous object.
Linearis Objectum No.3 recalls two benchmarks in the development of the drawing discipline: the invention of perspective in drawing with vanishing points in the Renaissance and the early 20th century manifestation of the line as a sculptural element, being freed from the two-dimensional plane, in Constructivism.

Radical Drawing Device is a tattoo machine which is capable of drawing a single, straight line and is applicable in one place only: the arm of the artist. Paaijmans built the machine around an epoxy moulded model of his own lower arm. The machine replaces the hand the drawer, the arm of the drawer becomes the paper. Radical Drawing Devicetattooed a line on Paaijmans’ arm during in a two-hour public performance at the Verbeke Foundation (Kemzeke, Belgium). Having created all elements manually, Paaijmans subsequently gives away control to his engineering which is enabled to move freely within a strict framework. Contrary to the line of a pencil, the line of the machine is indelible: the first (test) execution is at once the definitive one. Hesitation, doubt and little errors cannot be remedied and become part of the final result. The work is a balancing act at the intersection of the controllable and the uncontrollable. Jorrit Paaijmans