Old soul

Burning with fire

Update#2

Comment:

I'm presenting two works from the Delirium-serie at the group exhibition Artknights; Zwijveke museum in Dendermonde from the 7th to the 27th of October, opening night 07/10 at 7:00 p.m.

Expo Delirium, July 2011

Tag:

'The roof', 2011, oil on canvas, 90x110cm; 'Delirium', 2011, oil on canvas, 96x63cm; 'Ilex forest', 2011, oil on canvas, 80x100cm; 'One', 2011, oil on canvas, 91x90cm; 'This kingdom is mine', 2011, oil on canvas, 90x70cm; 'The healing garden', 2011, oil on canvas, 140x97cm

Possibility space

Ritual

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Mirror's image/Anomaly

Tag:

Detail _ 'The apprentice', 'Others like to see', 'Short stories of distance'
Detail _ 'End credits', 'This is me leaving', 'The globetrotter'
Collage_ 'Don't go off wandering', 'Short stories of distance', 'End credits', 'Are you a dreamer', 'Bonnie pink', 'The all-spark', 'Wall extramuros'

Aesthethica

Tag:

'Starcaster', 2011, oil on canvas, 220x160cm

Comment:

Intuition makes up for a great deal of my attitude as a painter; concepts surface at the right time, the right place in readings, movies and music. The following keywords might have been around occasionally, I've explicitly met these during the Delirium-project.

Possibility Space; generates for me all sorts of reflections about the image both on and off the canvas. Void; as it exists when two equal forces disable each other. Singularity/One. Bliss.

Destroyer

For Helene

Tag:

'The roof', 2011, oil on canvas, 90x110cm

Comment:

Hope you don't mind, but I don't have a pseudonym for you. So, this is the painting I've been working on for the past few nights, Helene. It's part of the serie Delirium, which I intend to show as a virtual exhibition with short films, pictures and writings, here on the blog. Maybe, one day you can see these paintings in an actual exhibition space, but for this project, I feel I have to keep it to myself, in my studio. I'm o.k., but I can't seem to get any sleep. Also, I'm listening to a lot of electro music, trance.. Have you tried the new album of The Subs yet, Decontrol, it's really really good. I bet you know some crazy dance moves that go along with it. Oh, and the song Airbrushed by Anamanaguchi. Take care. Love, Christian

Rihanna

I really like Rihanna. I like her music. She's inspiring, but for some reason I also think of her as my adversary. I guess it's because we're the same age. And, while she's already on top of the world, I'm still nowhere to be found. It's funny how we both cling to the color red. I've been wearing my red hoodie as often as I can, because I'm trying to overcome my fear of red (and it's negative charge). Sometimes, I wonder if she might be my other half. I'd love to meet her. She seems very sweet. (Fanboy)

People I'd like to hug: Russell Lissack (guitarist/Bloc Party); Robyn; Freddie Mercury (singer/Queen)

Expo Extramuros, March 2011

A photographic documentation of the exhibition can now be found on flickr.com. Also, the works I've made in October up to February, some haven't yet met the public, are uploaded there. ***

I'm on the outside. The woods, but not the kind where trees grow violently towards each other, it's more open. I've adapted  myself to this place, I know, because I can walk amongst the tree tops, and my skin feels rough and I can see weeds sprouting on the surface. I'm not lonely, but I didn't realize I was, until, one day, I encounter an original other, a beautiful girl. She told me she was on her way to Santiago de Compostela. We had picknick together. At the end of the day, we said our goodbyes. If she would not end her journey, she would not be happy and I don't want her to be not happy. As it started raining. I told her that I'll be her umbrella. So, we went on together, while flowers on my skin bloomed.

'Bonnie pink' was one of the four new works I've selected to show at Kotroute 2010, in Antwerp. In October I was without a job, found another one, but this would commence only the following month, so I got back at making paintings, images I've been roaming around with for some time. The different stories that are interwoven in these works are reminiscent of my last days at art school and me moving to a studio in Borgerhout. The perfect example is 'Are you a dreamer or part of the dream?', this painting and its title I already knew, would be the centerpiece of my forthcoming exhibition at CC Strombeek.

However, I had issues. The paintings I've made, up to the meltdown with 'The architect of destruction', are unmistakenly mine, an extended approach on making painterly images as I've been doing so in my senior year. I expected few familiar faces would visit me in Brussels and somehow that thought urged me to hide myself.

'This is me leaving' is the first of a serie works in black and white. There is little use of color, but in large I don't feel comfortable with colors anymore. I want to drop into my paintings, and colors seem to cause too much of a diversion by associating to the real world. The image; I am again found in company of a demon, in his car. The background shows a corner building, which is lously based on the address where I work now as a dishwasher.

At the previous exhibition I met a girl who was studying musical. I arranged 'The marriage of Lady Musical' after the idea of a renaissance depiction of a wedding, with cherubins. Several times when looking at my paintings, I wondered if maybe I embodied an old soul. The cornerstone of 'The All-spark' is a play of shadows; in white contours, I've fixated and entangled myself with the illusion of a second person who surfaces out of the previous layer. When backing up, it's almost like the right bottom shows but one figure, in a classic triangular composition.

Early January, I got to -mentally- take in the space that was reserved for me in Brussels. There is little time between working and painting, luckely, I'm used to constructing air castles in my spare moments. I apllied a wall painting on one side, leaving out great blank geometrical forms. The dividing line that goes well around the room, suggests a possible mountain landscape and is alternated with the canvases, respectively the horizon of each image.

An effective way of putting up a painting is by thriving on a truth that lies in the story told. 'Masters of reality' is the second feature of the October serie, me and Patience are quietly drawn in the studio, and because of its near lifelike proportion, I envisioned to play out the scene and keep the painting close to the floor.

'Why don't your eyes see me?' deals with an astronaut floating adrift in space and facing hallucinations along the way.


Approaching the end, the opening of the exhibition, I also decided to stir up interest by creating short films, something I have not yet done. 'Teaser#2' is for me the most valuable thing that has come out of the whole experience. The first teaser, in which I'm capturing the making of 'The globetrotter', an enlarged portrayal of the couple found in 'Thursday', had a lot of flaws and I deleted quickly. The idea for the follow-up, strangly, I remember thinking of already a year ago, when I was still in school and listening to that song, the same song used in the film. I guess sometimes due to the laws of physics, one is forced not to persue every notion that comes to mind immediately. I liked how each fragment of the different paintings comes loose from its setting and builds up to a story that, literally, lives within an ending and a beginning.

...Are you a dreamer or part of the dream?

I wrote down everything I wanted to share with you. Maybe I can tell more, but I'm tired. Please, do not hesitate to email me for anything. There are just too many stories, it's hard to unfold. Love, Christian. ***

Countdown -> 10 Days

Countdown -> 25 days

This is me leaving

Tag:

'This is me leaving', 2010, oil on canvas, 160x100cm