The beginning.

At first, there was theatre. As an actor, I gave body and voice to characters in discordant situations. I played parts, sometimes in self-made stories, sometimes in repertoire plays.

This activity resonates in my drawings. While drawing, I become the illustrator of stories that have not been put into words, that don’t really exist. Figures are involved in dramatic dialogues with either themselves or with others. Bodies are ambiguous, unfinished, melted, and seem to derive from an interrupted metamorphosis. No naturalism, instead: a theatre of dreams.

L'arrivé des dégoutants

Titles

I give titles to the drawings. Sometimes in Dutch, sometimes in French, sometimes in English. By doing so, I take them out of the domain of the strictly pictorial, and place them in a literary context. In fact, these titles work in the same way as the title of a play or a novel does. And since the stories in this case are “non-existing,” they can be invented by the viewer. I consider my titled drawings as prints in an ever-expanding cabinet of prints.

The philosopher remembers Caligari

Medium and method of working

The drawings originate in photographs I took, or physical drawings I made (with pencil, ink, gouache, aquarelle) and scanned into the computer. Then, I start working digitally. I use a simple Wacom drawing pad and Gimp, the freeware program for image editing. When I consider a work finished, I have it printed in a specialized photography shop. Generally, I opt for German Etching paper from Hahnemühle. It’s a nicely structured paper of 310 grams.

The drawings I will show mid-June, have more or less the same size as my computer screen. A maximum of 41 centimeters in height or width.

Of course, looking at a drawing on a computer screen (a light source) is very different from seeing the same work printed with ink on paper. I often need to make digital adaptations in contrasts and/or light, and then get it printed again.

My exhibition opens on June 17:

Illustrating Unexisting Stories

Gallery “In Den Bouw”, Zomerstraat 85, 9270 Kalken (Laarne), Belgium

www.indenbouw.be. Email: indenbouw@gmail.com

photo: Marianne Matthys

Illustrating unexisting stories