I want to express serenity, harmony, and light humor. My sculptures are spectators or dancers who dance the dance of life; they are more like Buddha’s. But in fact I am a workaholic, passionate and restless, longing for calm.
My boats don’t have oars
My figures are all at rest. The attributes are beds, chairs, sofas, baths or swings. My boats don’t have oars. They sail along with the current, in harmony with the elements, with life itself. The names of my sculptures often refer to quiet times: timeless, time lost, time off ... just sitting there ... listening to the summer rain ...
The form is just as important as the content
The same theme will turn into a tear-jerker in one poem and can become quite moving, universal or poetic in another. The difference isn’t in the subject, but in the choice and dosage of both words and breaks. Volumes and form tension are important visual art aspects.
I attach a great deal of importance to traditional aspects
I feel the traditional aspect of art is very important. All the vagueness and pretence surrounding art irritates me. A chair designed in pure lines and carefully built is just as much like art to me, as can be the case with cooking.
Accessible Art
I am particularly inspired by pre-Columbian art and the old African wooden sculptures you can admire in the Tervuren museum. I find ethnic art very appealing, as it’s so simple, almost child-like, but very expressive. The sheer joy which has gone into making these sculptures is very evident. I am also a great admirer of Art Brut, of the works of art produced by psychiatric patients, like the ones on display at the Gent Museum Dr Guislain, and of children’s drawings. I also love allotment gardens, with buxus and taxus pruned into dragons and animals. Yes, I know, we are now on the very edge of kitsch, but this is only a word, just like the ugly words artist and intellectual.
The words love and god are also in the top five of ugly words.
