BACKGROUND
I grew op in a small town near the medieval town of Bruges in Belgium. From childhood on I had a passion for drawing and painting on large format papers that I found in the printshop of my father. The art books rolling from the press formed my inspiration. While pursuing a career as a psychotherapist, music teacher, coach and expedition leader in Arctic regions and mountains, I never stopped studying and creating art. In my early years I was inspired by the old masters like Rembrandt, Rubens and Van Eyck and influenced by my favorite contemporary artists like Picasso, Miro, Duchamp, Broodthaers, Andy Warhol, Leon Spilliaert and many others. For the last thirty years I've been a vast visitor of the Venice Biënnale and numerous exhibitions, meanwhile developing my artistic and unique voice. In 2022 I decided to entirely devote my professional life to my passion for art and people.
ART, PROCESS, TECHNIQUE AND VISION
I unify abstract and figurative in stunning, almost 3-dimensional images created with acrylic paint, pure pigments and resin. It's unlike anything else. By reframing reality, placing the subjects that I photograph while wondering through cities with my 50 year old analogue point and shoot Minolta, in an abstract universe. We are all born in an abstract world without meaning, which due to language, geography, culture, believe systems is given sense. By removing the context and reframing the subject in a meaningless universe, I invite the viewer to question his believes, to simply feel and respect life in its mysterious way. The glossy quality of my paintings functions as a mirror. I invite the viewers to look at themselves through my Art. The search for sense is a quality exclusive for humans and what unifies all of us. I've experienced severe depression and poverty in my past, both personal and with people close to me. It has been a live changing experience and forged me to live as close to what's essential in life as possible.
‘For me art is a way of dealing with the madness of our world. It is a space of total freedom to reflect on reality.’
FUTURE GOALS
Reframing the human condition is the overal theme in my work. I am liberating people from the identity given by their social context. Poor or rich, homeless, refugees, businessmen,… isolated from the original context they regain humanity in it’s purest form, immersed in a cosmic world.
This social constructionism, which I studied with Kenneth Gergen (professor in psychology at Swarthmore college, U.S.) is something I plan working on in experimental documentary-art movies, alongside the breathtaking paintings I create.
