about my art work

Until recently, my visual practice consisted of painting and drawing. 

My path towards my own visual language has been rather long and winding. 

Partly because of my education at very different schools - in particular the Antwerp and Ghent Academies and the University of Oregon in the US - I was exposed to very different influences. 

Several times I encountered obstacles that had to do with the feeling that 'something was not right', that my visual language remained too much a construction that had too little ground in myself. 

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Whenever I encountered such a period, I returned to observation of reality as a basis; it was always a kind of going back to source and an attempt to tap into a deeper and more honest layer, away from formalism, quotation, or formulas that were too non-committal.

This process of alternating between perception and imagination came to an end between 2006 and 2012. 

From the autumn of 2012, the work that I consider my 'mature' work began, in the form of five large series of drawings and multimedia work on paper. 

This coincided with the founding - with four other Antwerp artists - of the experimental space for contemporary art WorkPlace, in the center of Antwerp. 

Running this non-profit space for contemporary visual arts has been a very enjoyable period of lively interaction and dialogue with a great many artists, well-known and lesser-known, which also gave an additional dynamic to my work. 

I stopped my painting practice to concentrate on drawing and work on paper, as this allowed a much faster evolution and a faster exploration of associative processes and organic connections. 

Since then, in my visual work I mainly explored the relationship between our thinking, our intuition, and our perception. In particular, the way in which we project 'maps' and 'schemes' onto reality, and then confuse those schemes with reality, was a common thread in my drawings. 

I was also fascinated by the inner order and dynamics of the visual process, and how that order seemed to be related to the inner order in nature and reality itself. 

Through the visual work I also became acquainted with spiritual and mystical traditions and intuitions from antiquity to the present, knowledge traditions that often state the same thing as contemporary science.

This search led me to ideas, interpretations and insights into how - for many thousands of years - we as a species (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) create a mythology and a story that creates a fundamental separation between us and our universe.  

 

The insights I have gained during my path as a visual artist are not new, on the contrary. Often these are intuitions that are as old as humanity itself, but with which we have lost touch. Many, if not all 'old' cultures were permeated by a deep awareness of the unity of all things, and also of the unity of consciousness and matter, insights that we now also come back to through science: especially the field of quantum physics (but not exclusively that domain) often tells the same story as the mystics of thousands of years ago.

The point I arrived at on my own search is a point where countless others have come before me. But each angle can have its own value, and each has different possibilities for synthesis and therefore new energy for an ancient story.  

 

I felt ready to explore these processes, intuitions and insights on a larger scale as well, and I made preparations to do so in the course of 2019. But gradually over the course of that year the feeling grew that it was becoming more and more impossible for me to engage with my intuitions, thought processes and insights in this way. 

The climate and biodiversity crisis penetrated all the cracks and crevices in the sheltered 'cocoon' of my studio, and the feeling came with great intensity that my future path would be there, in a much more direct and accessible commitment to the ecological crisis, which in itself cannot be separated from the other crises facing humanity. 

You can read about this revolution in my approach in the blogpost 'A declaration of intent' - the first post in my blog on this site - and on the page 'About my path' (link below).

The series of drawings that have been created since 2012 can be found on the page 'Visual work' (link below).

You can read more about the projects I plan on the page 'About A Biosphere Project'.  

 

You will find a gallery with a representative selection of my photographic work from 2005 to 2020, as well as a text about my past relationship with photography, on the 'Photography' page

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Is my path as a visual artist now closed off for good? I do not know. At this point in my life, other tools, media and approaches are required. But the energy and specificity of visual thinking will continue to form a part of my being, and it is my intention that the approach of someone who has been shaped by a life of visual and intuitive search may give its own accent and angle to thinking and feeling about this all-embracing crisis that threatens our planet and humanity. Visual thinking is fundamentally different from 'rational' or linguistic thinking. I want to include that individuality in my new projects and in my interaction with people from other disciplines and frameworks. 

Moreover, photography, a lifelong second passion, will become an important part of my new path, and in that sense the visual will become a permanent part of my new path. 

I see my future photographic work primarily as a document, not as an artistic project. But if there is one medium in which documentation and artistic value can reinforce each other, it is photography.

Writing in itself is of course also a medium in which the document (the information that is shared) can contain a quality that goes far beyond the purely informative. My intention is to write from my entire being, not just from my head. We must create a new story of connection if we are to face the current crisis and challenge, and one of the first connections that must be restored is the connection between head and heart. Art has always been one of the main spaces where the link between head and heart has remained possible, and that sanctuary must 'break out' into other domains of our existence. In that sense, art remains paramount in the great transformation that awaits us.