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Over the past years, the works of Joris Vanpoucke have undergone a striking evolution from illustrative draughtsmanship and graphic art to autonomous paintings and drawings, driven by a quest for personal expression through rigorous material research and introspection. In all of this, Vanpoucke is prompted by a desire to map his context in an archival way from his position as artist, so as to penetrate his own inner world.

After an intense period of contemplation in his rural studio and in 2016 and 2017, Vanpoucke steps forward with fully formed series of brooding self-portraits. The poetic and naturalistic approach of these paintings runs parallel with the developpement of a new set of drawings depicting natural themes. Both the portraits, reflecting on the self, as well as the drawings, representing the outside world, feel familiar yet ultimately strike the viewer as alienating. When the habitual turns estranged, the works give access to a certain umheimlich feeling. This effect is reinforced by the artist's decision to work with organic materials as carrier, wich permeate the works with a tactile transience that sharply contrasts with the almost clinical images depicted.

From 2018 onwards, Vanpoucke's works go through a further process of gradual refinement in which the personal approach to the themes of portrait and landscape becomes more urgent as a means of expressing the inner world of the artist. No more do the works try to hold on reality: they reveal an attempt to destoy it. While the archivist's eye is still present, it no longer tries to perpetrate reality through observation but rather offers a transformative insight behind the surface of existence. The landscapes become a realisation of imaginary, stormy worlds. Nature transpires as a metaphor for the emanation and elimination of life, the search for the darkness of being, the essence of the cosmos. This evolution, this quest for identity is juxtaposed with the immediacy and transience of the mundane, and plays out on the edge of existence, as an observer hoping for the dissolution of time. jorisvanpoucke.blogspot.com/  

met dank aan DMW-Artspace Borgerhout Antwerpen

 

Through my work I try to enlarge my own understanding of individuals and humanity at large. My work deals both with issues of which we think we comprehend and matters of which we wonder and assume we don't know them; it's about mirrors and walls. Walls because we're not always able to know what's behind the story we are confronted with, and mirrors because we like to think we know what's behind it because we can see some of our self reflected in it. In a very humble way I hover over the big and small questions about who we are and why we are who we are. www.bramkinsbergen.com/ 

 

Johan Gelper maakt tekeningen, installaties en sculpturen die zich aanpassen aan de condities van een ruimte. Deze werken zijn ontstaan in een geheel van “demonteerbare ruimtelijke tekeningen”. “Constellaties met geleende vormen” toont een selectie van sculpturale componenten uit zijn “demonteerbare ruimtelijke tekeningen”. Deze werken zijn het resultaat van een reeks experimenten, waarin gevonden objecten gecombineerd worden als ‘geleende vormen’. Het maak- en denkproces van deze werken laat toeval, interactie, de context waarin het werk gemaakt (en getoond) wordt, mee het resultaat bepalen. Licht, ruimte, omgeving en focus zijn noodzakelijke voorwaarden om tot zijn beelden te komen. Sculpturale thema’s als constructie, gewicht, schaal, ruimte, restruimte en vorm worden hierin gecombineerd in een spel met abstractie en referentie. www.johangelper.be/

  

  

  

 

vlnr Joris Vanpoucke , Bram Kinsbergen , Johan Gelper