ACOTIAD #009
S O, YO U’R E A PA I N T E R?
Interviewing myself in an attempt to figure out what I’ve been doing.
Correct.
What does it mean for you, today, being a painter? I mean, painting has been declared dead many times. Is there still any relevance today in being a painter? I can’t say I haven’t been asking myself the same question many times. The easy answer would be that as long somebody is painting, the medium is not dead, but I guess that’s also avoiding the question a bit. It’s difficult as well to give a conclusive answer to that question. For me, personally, one of the reasons I started painting was just because it was a rather marginalized medium in contemporary art, at least when I started my studies. Or that that was the impression I had at the time. But it wasn’t true? Well, it was what I thought, but it might just have been that I didn’t knew many contemporary active painters back then. When I started painting I honestly didn’t know so much about contemporary painting or even painting in general. I have a background in graphic design and I had an affinity with animation, cartoons, graffiti and what people now call street art. During my studies my biggest influences were artists from the West Coast (USA) : Barry McGee, Margareth Killgallen, Mark Ryden, Raymond Pettibon to name a few. I also had a subscription to Juxtapoz magazine that showcased this kind of artists. Did you make these kinds of work yourself at that time? Of the artists I just mentioned Mark Ryden probably was one my biggest influences. I think in my very first year at art school my goal was to paint in his style, which is called Pop Surrealism. But I lacked the technical skill to do that. Something my teachers at the time made me aware of in a quite harsh way (laughs). So you improved your technique? Hard to explain how it went exactly, but improving my skill was definitely something I worked on, and still am working on today. I also moved away from Pop Surrealism the more I got to know other painters. Pop Surrealism
and other popular styles can maybe be defined as “cool”. Something I wanted to be too much when I was younger, before I really got involved in painting. I think I neglected a sense of self a bit in wanting to be “cool”. Is there anything wrong in wanting to be “cool”? I guess not. It depends on what you would define as being “cool”. A lot of people of my generation, not only artists, were really into shows like the Simpsons, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Friends and other TV-shows that expresses a certain sense of cool. These were all American TV-shows by the way. For me this related as well to graffiti, skating and the punk scene. As a young guy, although I also had other interests and I never was part of any of these scenes, I guess I wanted to paint in a style that related to this kind of “cool”. But none of these things really related to your personal interests? Of course they did, but there were a lot of other things that I found really interesting that weren’t as mainstream. And I guess that’s why in the beginning I was attracted by the work of Mark Ryden. Although he has a style that can be seen as quite popular, his paintings are full of really interesting cultural, scientific and historical references. In that sense he is also a good example of a Post-modern artist. What do you mean by that? In my final year of painting my promoter made me write my thesis on Post-modernism. In this dissertation I compared Post-modernism in art with shopping. Maybe something that’s also part of our contemporary culture in general. We all shop a personal style together. Mixing up all kinds of styles and references into something “new” or “unique”. That’s why I call Ryden a Post-modern artist as he puts all kinds of references together in his work creating a new narrative. It might seem random at first sight, but I’m sure there is a relevance why he combines things in his works. I never fully researched his sources, but I’m sure it all makes sense to him. So how was this all relevant for your own work? I guess I’m also a child of the post-modern era. I have a huge appetite and I easily absorb things that surround me. While I was studying, this was translated in collages in which I put together images from any possible source. Next to collages with paper, I combined images in Photoshop that I later on translated into paintings. Using different references together in one image created a new narrative, that for me constituted a reflection of today’s world. As a person being part of contemporary life and culture I had, and still have, the possibility to research all kinds of things on any level. For example travelling has become cheaper than ever, so it’s easy to visit the world and get to know other cultures. On the other hand, if we make the effort, we can also meet people from other cultures in our everyday lives. Internet is another powerful tool to explore unknown and even obscure things, and because it all can be found on this one platform it balances each other out. In that sense I like the quote of the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans: “If one thing matters, everything matters”. With this philosophy in mind, all kinds of subdivisions we tend to create in our society cease to exist on any level; cultural, historical, artistic, relational, etc. I guess I understand what you mean, but then again, it’s impossible to research everything and understand everything. And there’s also a personal aspect to it. Isn’t it so you only look into things that are close to yourself or feed your own interests? When I started painting I only used information that came from my personal environment and interests. What I forgot to mention is that at that time I was concerned with the question of what a “universal” painting could be, and in a way I still am, but for now I’ll stick to what I was doing back then. By “universal” I understood that it was possible to use, or to appropriate as you wish, any kind of information or image from any kind of source, without making distinctions. By putting these references together they would neutralize each other, as they became part of the reality of this new image or world. Maybe some would say the references where in conflict, but I always tried to find an esthetical solution for the works in a way the images balanced each other out, as would be the case in any respectful dialogue. It’s interesting you mention the word dialogue. It almost sounds as if you wanted the subdivisions you mentioned before, to get into a real dialogue. Were you trying to find out where they met or where their differences and similarities lay? I personally don’t like conflict too much and I’ve always believed that to understand something or someone it’s important to engage with that certain thing or person. Next to my painting practice I have a small side project that is called “I Love You All”, with an emphasis on the “ALL”. Many people rely on prejudices about certain things or persons, without making the effort of trusting their own personal understanding. My belief is that on most levels, may it be personal, cultural, historical or artistic, it is possible to understand another point of view by understanding the specific background of the thing or person you are confronted with. But this needs an effort that most people don’t have the time for, or just don’t care about. They are stuck in their own belief system and try to hold on to it at all costs. What people tend to forget is that we are all raised and educated in a certain way. The belief system you are part of, some kind of morality you could
say, is always just a construction of things that historically can be explained. Depending on where you’re born, the financial status of your family, the level of education you receive, your religious and cultural background, your friends… you manufacture a certain kind of foundation for yourself to hold on to as you are moving through life. As I see it, these are just creations or constructions to be able to cope with reality, one of many possible ones. A personal belief system or religion if you wish. This makes me think of the Absurd philosophy as described by Albert Camus in his book The myth of Sisyphus. For many years this book has been an important influence on both my life and work. The absurd says there is no absolute meaning to life and we need to try to accept it like this. Because this is hard to cope with, people throughout history have been very resourceful in creating meaning through certain belief systems, may it be religious, philosophical, scientific or even artistic. And even though we already know a lot about our world and our place in the universe, we don’t yet know the reason why we live and why we can understand that we are alive. In the secular society of the western world everyone is free to create their own “belief” system, which, for me at least, makes it more evident how much these are merely constructions for someone to hold on to. That’s why I also just find it important to get in touch with, and try to understand other points of view and ways to makes sense of this world. I see, I think I understand this on philosophical and maybe even anthropological level, but how does this translate itself through your work? We spoke a bit about the collages and the different references you used for them. Can you elaborate on that? Well yes, as I said, in the beginning most of the references I used came from personal interests and influences. But at a certain point I expanded my knowledge by interrogating people about their personal interests and influences. In 2011 I did a project during a residency of a month in a street in Brussels where I worked with the information I gathered in this street (http://samtuvu.wordpress.com). I interviewed a lot of people who lived or worked there: at their small businesses, their homes or wherever I met them. With the collected information and images, I created an installation in the exhibition space of the residency (M’atuvu) that brought all this information together. I restrained myself from adding anything personal to this installation, outside of course the creation of the installation and the works that were part of it. This installation brought together the small isolated universes of the people I met, into a new, possible constellation. By using information, images and objects that were outside your personal interests sounds a bit like appropriation art, or is there no link to it? I think there is a certain link. During my studies I was taught about “The Fountain” of Duchamps, who by just putting a urinal in another context created a new meaning, or at least another way of looking at an object. Somehow that’s what I did with all these different resources. Picking them out of their natural environment, so to speak, placing them in another context and combining or confronting them with other elements. Something Duchamp did as well by putting a bicycle wheel on top of a kitchen stool. A very intelligent, simple and beautiful idea. It’s about practicing yourself in looking differently at the reality that presents itself to you on an everyday basis. The whole world becomes a constructed art installation all of a sudden if you look at it that way. An idea that might correspond with Joseph Beuys, the social sculpture and “Jeder mensch ist ein Künstler”. Or with Kurt Schwitters and the “Merz Gesamtkunstwerk”. I see what you mean. But with all this in mind I’d like to return to my initial question: “So, you’re a painter?”. Because it sounds as if you’re more of a conceptual artist. I can understand that you see it that way, and it’s probably true that concept is an important part of my practice. When I started, my work was probably mostly conceptual and socially critical although it was translated into collages, drawings and paintings. Maybe this way of conceptual thinking also came from my background as a graphic designer, where it was my job to translate the concept of the client into a visual style. Next to painting I did experiments in other domains like video, installation, performance, comics, sculpture and graphics, but none of these where as important as painting has become for me today. It’s probably true that I wasn’t really a painter from the start. Today I would say that I am, as I better understand the possibilities of the medium. The first few years of my practice my paintings were rather illustrations of the concepts we talked about before. What happened since than that you would call yourself more of a painter today? I guess in my early paintings, due to their collated style, I was mixing up different visual styles as well. For example a part of a painting of Caravaggio appeared next to a graphical image, next to drippings and some kind of impressionistically painted tree. Another painting mixed a detail of a painting of Breughel together with an illustrative bird head and some hard edge color planes, yet another mixed together a detail of a Goya painting with a bird done with a stencil and spray paint as Banksy would do it. So I wasn’t only mixing images but also different styles and different kinds of paint. Spray paint, acrylics, oil and lacquer paint were the ones I used most frequently. To
understand the medium better I also forced myself to visit lots of exhibitions and I did an extensive research on the Internet in search of possible ways to apply all these types of paint. And this went far beyond the classical canon of the history of painting. Could you give some examples of that specific research period? To be able to work with spray paint, for example, I did research into graffiti and what is now called street art, for the lacquer paint I looked into pin-striping and free hand lettering, for oil paint the classical masters as well as the Pop-surrealists I mentioned before, and more contemporary painters. Acrylic paint is a pretty new medium, so I mostly learned to use it trough trial and error. I also looked into outsider art of mentally disabled people and psychiatric patients, and investigated the painting history of non-Western cultures. These are just some examples, as I really tried to absorb everything I came across. Again, I saw all these different approaches to painting as equal to each other, and mixed them accordingly together in my works. For me the subdivision between high and low culture doesn’t really exist. I rather see them as different kinds of coexisting visual expressions. Were there any other painters that you found working in this way? During my research, that still continues today, although less prolifically, I did came across painters that were mixing styles and images together. Kati Heck for example is a painter that seemed to work in quite a similar way, although she has a much more defined style. Also Neo Rauch and Matthias Weischer were big influences in the way they mixed all kinds of imagery together. I’m pretty sure there were others that influenced me, but I would have to get back into my research from that time to dig up other names. (http://droomerland.tumblr.com/archive). If I look at your paintings of today it seems to me as if the very charged collated images you made in the beginning, made place for a kind of restrained form of abstract painting. How did this evolution take place? Like any other evolution it happened quite gradually and had to do with different things on different levels. I vividly remember a visit to a retrospective with the work of Per Kirkeby, which totally blew me away. Before that specific moment I wasn’t much interested in abstract painting, probably because I didn’t understand yet that the medium paint doesn’t necessarily needs an image to convey something. This exhibition really opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. Also, for a certain time I stepped back from the idea of creating “the universal image”, as some people told me it was impossible and non-existing, which gave me a lot of breathing space and renewed freedom. Lastly, but most importantly I went to Leipzig (Germany) for a year where I forced myself to rather work from memory and imagination than images, and where I did a profound research into the medium of painting. I was living and working fulltime in an international context, which really broadened my view on painting and art in general. In which way this international context was important to you? Next to the German painters that were already installed in Leipzig, I met people from Japan, USA, Russia, Denmark, Australia, Italy, France, Slovenia and Panama, all with their own specific background. I had a similar international experience during an Erasmus exchange in Nottingham (UK) for four months during my studies, but my experience in Leipzig was different as the people I met there weren’t students but adults and professionals in art. As I shared my research and influences with them, they did the same with me, which notably increased my knowledge of both old and new masters. For example I got to know the theories of Wassily Kandinsky, which made me more aware on how to use and combine colors in a work, and maybe also how to read paintings by others. Next to that I got to work at a place where the influence of both Neo Rauch and Matthias Weischer, some of my biggest personal influences as I mentioned earlier, was tangible and very present. But by working closely to them I also felt the need somehow to move away from it, if that makes sense. I understood it wasn’t their work I wanted to make, but rather to find my own visual language and form of expression. Yes, that does make sense. Is that why you started researching the medium of painting more? Yes, it probably had something to do with that. One of the American painters I met in Leipzig introduced me to the book, or better the bible of Ralph Meyer, “The Artists’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques”. In this book all kinds of long forgotten techniques are explained, next to the origin of all the different pigments of which paint is made, and recipes to make your own paint. By reading the book I became aware of the toxicity of certain paints, and the difference between natural and chemical pigments. I also did several experiments with egg-based paint or tempera, and made my own oil and acrylic paint. All these experiences made me a lot more aware of the medium I was using and the different ways I could apply it. Is this the moment when your work shifted more towards abstraction? During this time my work evolved in two completely different directions: on the one hand I did experiments in
some kind of abstract expressionistic style with cartoonish elements, on the other hand I made a series of very classical portrait drawings and paintings, as in that same year I visited Madrid for the first time and was completely flabbergasted by the portrait paintings I saw there in Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. With the abstract works I found a freedom in expression, whereas with the portraits I forced myself to be patient and incredibly detailed and precise. Two different ways of working that still serve me today. So, what happened after Leipzig? And how did this time further influenced your work? After Leipzig I moved to Brussels, were I’m currently still working and living. The information I gathered and the experiments I undertook in Leipzig, made me get into an even more intense research period. I familiarized myself with the color theory of Josef Albers, read the art theories of Mondrian and by doing so also understood the spiritual and sometimes scientific underflow of many of the modernist painters. The same year I also visited New York, where on a daily basis I visited museums, art galleries, art fairs and artist studios. There, for the first time, I saw all the famous works of the old masters, next to the big modernist painters and was immersed in the world of young contemporary painting, which again was an eye-opener. Terms as “zombie formalism” and “bad painting” suddenly became part of my lexicon. An important moment in NY was when, in the Guggenheim museum, I saw the paintings of Kandinsky that he made at the end of his life in Paris. Absolute beauties! Another important discovery, I did around the same time on the Internet, was the work of Thomas Nozkowski, who until today is one of my favorite abstract painters, as he also has a very experimental style. And what kind of work were you personally making at that time? By accident I found a bunch of small MDF panels of 37x37cm somewhere. I liked the square format as on the one hand it referred to the square paintings of Per Kirkeby and on the other hand could refer to the, at that time, square images on Instagram. The fact they were all the same size, corresponded as well with the work of Nozkowski as he always works on the same size of canvases. On these panels I made a series of all very different works, influenced by the torrent of information I gathered during this time and the year before. Eventually I did a solo show with the title “Absurd man does not cling to certainties” at Kusseneers Gallery in Brussels with twenty-seven of these small paintings and three paintings on a bigger format. I guess you could say that this show was my first real show as a professional artist. Or at least that was what it felt like. In the beginning of our conversation you mentioned you were looking for the universal image but in Leipzig you took a brake from it. Did this idea eventually return to your work? I probably never abandoned it completely. By mixing all kinds of styles together on one panel, I was doing something similar as when I did the “collated paintings”. And by researching the medium, I came to understand that color pigments have their origins in different places of our planet. Which meant to me, in a way, that every painting with many colors is somehow universal. So this idea of “the universal” never completely disappeared, only the way It was translated through my work. Did anything change in your work after the show in Kusseneers Gallery? At first I had the idea to continue the series on the square panels. But at a certain point, very early in this process actually, I came to understand that I could continue forever in this way, without really coming to a specific conclusion. It’s possible to mix up styles in an innumerable kind of ways, without an end, and I just couldn’t do that anymore. So what happened in my studio was when I wasn’t satisfied with the image I created, I just painted it white again. This happened several times until the only possible outcome would be this white painting. I should mention that at that time I was reading the theories of Ad Reinhardt who, at a certain point in his career, and for fives years in a row, painted nothing but square black canvases. I also bumped into recent work of André Butzer of white fields on a black ground, and offcourse was familiar with the famous paintings of Malevich. So you just copied these painters? It’s true that by reaching this point in my practice I suddenly understood the idea of the empty, white or black canvas. But it was only after this realization I researched it more, as for me it was the only possible outcome at that time, and I wanted to know how other painters throughout art history thought about it. The first “black square” I came across was drawn by Matthäus Merian and dates back to 1624 (google search: “et sic in infinitum, Matthäus Merian”). So I wasn’t just copying these works, I rather was looking for a personal and contemporary way to translate this idea. The biggest difference between my works and the works of the fore mentioned artists was maybe not instantly visible, but they were painted in encaustic; an ancient Egyptian painting technique with beeswax, damar resin and pigments. It was also for the first time I painted on poplar wooden panels and prepared these panels with rabbit skin glue and Spanish white chalk. All natural, non-toxic products. The encaustic gave a beautiful texture and shine to the paintings. For me these works were very life-like, full of small imperfections and because of the brilliance
also reflected the colors of the space they were shown in. They weren’t the end of something, nor dead or empty, but on the contrary, because of the unavoidable imperfections caused by the encaustic technique, full of life and rich of new possibilities. Meditative planes, if you want, that invited the viewer to give free rein to the imagination. It’s also for the first time I saw the works not only as paintings but also as objects in a space. It becomes clear to me that you have the urge to evolve through your work. How did you continue after these encaustic paintings? The aforementioned works took me a year to make, and by painting “nothing” for a year and only listening to ambient music at that time, my mind got into some kind of meditative or mindful state. And when looking at reality or other images in books or on the Internet, I became able to objectify my perception of things. Whereas subjective perception is fed by certain positions, feelings, beliefs and attitudes, objective perception is seeing things as they are without any obscuration or intermediacy.1 Which made me come to the conclusion that objective reality is nothing more than colors and shapes in constant flux. See it as the way a baby or a young child perceives reality, which is again some kind of universal way of seeing things if you think of it (smiles). So my next series of paintings were just that: nothing but color and shape mixed together in a playful, liquefied way. Two things I did keep in mind while making these paintings were on the one had that I didn’t want any shape to look like anything recognizable, so the viewer wasn’t able to identify something. On the other hand I wanted every painting to be balanced out, because wherever you look in the real world, your view is always balanced out, weirdly enough. Maybe this happens automatically in the brain, but that’s something I can’t explain. As I’ve seen these works, I’ve also noticed how precise and flat the shapes on these panels were painted. And something you haven’t mentioned are the frames you made for them. How were these elements important for the work? I would like to start by saying these works were also painted on poplar wooden panels prepared with the same old school gesso as the black and white ones. After working with encaustics I became more aware of the type of paint I was using and decided on only working with Lascaux acrylic paint, as this is produced in an ecological way and you don’t need toxic solvents to thin it. As for the flatness and the precision, this also had to do with the objectivity I mentioned before. Although the shapes overlap each other, they are all, as you say, precisely defined. In real life everything is mixed up as well, but at the same time, if you deconstruct this reality, stands on its own. And I didn’t add any texture or visible brushstroke to this works as I wanted to treat every shape identically; to give them the same importance and degree of attention or finish. I see, again this idea of equality. And what about the frames? When I was working on these paintings and had a few of them finished, I noticed how much they looked like classical modernistic paintings. For me they literally needed an edge. So I decided to make frames out of rough scrap wood and painted these in a kind of primitive, raw and childlike way, which made them stand in contrast with the flat and precise paintings. At the same time they underscored the objective, childlike perception of reality these works were about. And it also gave them a more “object-like” appearance, as the encaustic paintings. By putting the frames next to the works you could also say you were again making collages of two different worlds. Yes, I guess you could say that. Ok, this brings us to your final body of work that you’ve recently shown in the duo show with Warre Mulder “Blessed be our ship, and those who sail her” at The White House Gallery, Lovenjoel. Unlike your “objectified paintings” these works do have texture and different kinds of paint handling in them. Could you explain how these elements got into your work? Before I answer your question, I would like to go back to the absurd philosophy I mentioned earlier. As you know now “the absurd” refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any. By making the previous series, objectified paintings as you call them, I kind of freed myself from the need to find or give meaning. It was some kind of acceptance of the way reality presents itself. Which also has to do with the Taoist philosophy, that also talks about accepting life as it is and how it comes. The previous series only translated the visual side of this kind of objective perception into, as I mentioned before, colors and shapes. The lasts series also includes the emotions, ideas and conflicts that present themselves when confronted with reality. It’s one thing to look at reality and accept it as it is, but every experience comes with some kind of emotion as well. This can be beauty, disgust, wonder, inexplicability, surprise, sadness, joy, happiness, etc. It requires a certain degree of awareness to identify these different kinds of emotions in yourself. All the works of the new series are based on personal experiences with a strong emotional response, some kind of wonder. My goal for all of these paintings was to translate these ideas and experiences trough abstract painting. Therefore I needed to start working and experimenting with different kinds of textures and ways of handling paint.
1
https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/pure-perception
Is it important for you that the spectator understands the experience you try to transfer? Not really. Although I was trying to translate the essence of these experiences. The question I had in mind was: “How can I translate something by only using abstract shapes, certain colors and different textures?”. Since every experience or idea was different, I had to find a different solution for every individual work, which sometimes took me several layers to find. Most of the works have underlying layers that still can be sensed in the structure of the final visible layer, or the finished work. To answer your question, I don’t think I want the viewer to literally understand the experience or concept behind the work, but maybe just have some kind of emotional response when confronted with the abstract image. To come to a conclusive work it was important for me to keep the concept for each painting in mind. In Leipzig I made a few free abstract works that were nothing but compositions, but it was hard for me to know when they were finished. And with the “objectified paintings” I knew I was looking for a balance in the work, but also there I can’t really explain when or why they were finished for me. And what about the universal? Since your work is based on personal experiences, I have the impression it’s more about something individual rather than universal, wouldn’t you agree? It is true that I started from individual experiences, but by abstracting them and translating the essence, the paintings are no longer just about this individual experience. I think I translated the personal or individual to something that can be read and understood more universal. Moreover by using nothing but colors, shapes and textures I think I’m using the medium as a universal visual language. But I guess that might sound cocky (laughs). One final question about these works: You mentioned before you started to see your paintings as objects in a space. Is this still the case with these works? Well, obviously they are still paintings but I also see them as parts of a bigger whole. Although they are based on separate personal experiences, they are all part of the story of my life. In this way you could almost see them as single panels out of a comic book. I once read the books “Making comics” and “Understanding comics, the invisible art” by Scott McCloud, two indispensible books when it comes to the art of making comics. By reading these books the importance of the space between the different panels in a comic book became clear to me. It’s where a storyteller needs to rely on the imagination of the reader to make the jump from one panel to another, without being confused about what happens between these two moments in the story. In a way, that’s also how I see my work. They are all separate panels, but at the same time part of one bigger story. It would be interesting to know what happens in the imagination of the viewer when going from one painting to another, whether or not they make a certain, maybe even unconscious, connection between the works. I try to make this connection tangible by painting directly on the walls of the exhibition space. In this way the space becomes part of the work and the separate works in return become objects in this bigger installation. So, yes, they are still paintings but at the same time also objects that are part of a greater whole, or of a bigger story. This makes me think of an exhibition you did last year with several other artists in the Cultural Centre of Mechelen. The exhibition BRIGHT brought together the works of six international working artists in one big, very energetic and colorful installation. For me this project was a big success, as it was perceived as one installation. For the spectator who didn’t know the works of the separate artists, it wasn’t clear which artist made which work. The visitor literally walked into the artwork, an alternate reality almost, where all the separate artworks supported the same narrative that created the story of the exhibition. To give an answer to your initial question about the relevance of being a painter today is maybe just this. For me today, as an artist, it is important to transport, maybe even to seduce the viewer into another possible reality. And I would like to emphasize on the word “possible” because I’m not talking about the surreal. To explain this, I would like to go back to the objects that Duchamps placed in the context of an exhibition, and by doing so, changed our way of perceiving reality. Suddenly all possible objects could be seen as works of art. On a bigger scale, the human construction of the civilized world could be seen as one big work of art. The outcome of this construction, which is today’s civilization, can be understood historically, from a distance and in retrospect, as a chain of happenings and human decisions. But the world we are living in today is just one of many possible outcomes. We accept it today as it is, but what if in the course of history other decisions were made, wouldn’t it be possible that our reality would have looked different? That’s why I spoke about a possible reality when speaking about the installation we did in Mechelen. By transporting the viewer in such an environment you lift the veil to imagine another reality. In todays society where all cultures and possible viewpoints get mixed up in a very confusing way, I think it is crucial we learn to let go of our own personal constructed realities, maybe try to go back to the basic needs of everyone, to create a different reality that is beneficial for the largest part of our new, contemporary society. If I translate this idea to my work, you could say that by extensively mixing up all kinds of imagery and styles I eventually came to the conclusion that it’s nothing but colors, shapes and textures, the basics of painting if you
acotiad [at] gmail [dot] com - July 2018 -- all content of this publication Š Samuel Vanderveken - dedicated to Marilou Bel
want. Similarly by doing an extensive research into the medium I found out that paint is nothing more than pigments and a certain binder. With these elements it is for me now possible to start to construct a whole other kind of reality based on personal experiences. Probably, both as an artist and as a human being, it is this imaginative power, the power of possibilities I would like to convey with my work as I see it as a crucial ingredient for our future society.
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