THE VOID, BETWEEN WHITE AND FULLNESS Stéphane Vereecken Catalogue
Curated by Alessia Perone
Stéphane Vereecken - THE VOID, BETWEEN WHITE AND FULLNESS Design and critical review curated by Alessia Perone - Art Manager Catalogue | Solo Exhibition April 4 - 30 Artworks by Stéphane Vereecken Cover book: Work 28, 2021, photography, 50 x 50 cm www.alessiaperoneart.com alessiaperone.artmanager@gmail.com IG @alessiaperone.artmanager IG @stephanevereecken
THE VOID, BETWEEN WHITE AND FULLNESS
ABOUT
Photography is the basis of the Stéphane Vereecken’s work. His artistic studies made him discover several traditional and virtual techniques. His first photos were Polaroids, with paint and collages on them. Stéphane has experimented with painting and photographic collages and painting on wood. He started very young to exhibit in galleries with artists like Araki, Dolores Marat, Paul Mc Carthy in Brussels at the Damasquine Art Gallery in Brussels. Since then, he has exhibited in Europe (Greece, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain… ) and in the United States in New York.
Since Stéphane started to create, he has been naturally driven by surrealism and conceptualism. The line between the two is sometimes thin. The surrealist has no defined limits and can experience anything because everything comes out of his dreams.
T H E V O I D
... BETWEEN WHITE AND FULLNESS
In what way does emptiness constitute the things that surround us? The respect and value that emptiness assumes in the works of Stéphane Vereecken seems to come close to the Japanese Zen thought: it is that aspect that unites and binds through a red thread the common points among the various elements. The emptiness in art, therefore in the space that is in reality full as well, represents the inauguration by the artist of a new aesthetic concept that is composed of matter and space. Going beyond the very boundaries of the pictorial surface, the void literally enters into the work, becoming an integral part of it. Therefore, that space is the work itself, as the work is made with space, which is an infinite dynamic matter.
In the Stéphane Vereecken’s artworks the void fills the distance with the flux and tribulations of the moment: it is a matter of filling this space with objects, emptying and reordering it, leading the viewer to the crossroads between reality and fantasy, science and imagination.
The role of emptiness is essential and transcendental if we think at the concept of the Universe, understood as a black and infinite abyss. On the contrary, white reaches its fullness and represents a concrete totality.
In all this, by recalling the themes of Surrealism, the photographic medium combined with the digital one can express at its best the essence and concerns of the human being, connecting it to the world of dream and irrationality.
A sort of paradox is being created: the work is there, but it is as if it was not, such is the feeling of being in front of reality.
Emptiness, space, white, fullness and infinity: terms that express the style of Stéphane Vereecken and her artistic production, aimed at emphasizing that entity not conceived as absence and negativity, but as an element capable of creating everything from its purity.
The work itself becomes the content, intertwining the aesthetic aspect with the substantial and subjective aspect: it therefore becomes autonomous, without supports that serve to give it meaning.
Between the photographs and the drawings, it is possible to notice secondary characters, whose task is to tell an unfinished story; while each figure, placed in the foreground and in a central position that plays the role of protagonist of the narration, best represents a process in progress and a potential future.
By breaking the rules of reality and freeing creativity, Stéphane Vereecken helps the observer to immerse himself/herself in his/her own unconscious to expand his/her senses and states of mind.
PHOTOGRAPHS DIGITAL PAINTINGS
Work 1 2020, photography, 50 x 60 cm, 5,000 EUR
Work 2 2020, photography, 50 x 60 cm, 5,000 EUR
Work 3 2020, photography, 50 x 60 cm, 5,000 EUR
Work 28 2021, photography, 50 x 50 cm, 3,500 EUR
Work 33 2021, photography, 50 x 50 cm, 3,500 EUR
Work 60 2020, photography on paper, 50 x 70 cm , 5,000 EUR (unique piece)
Work 61 2020, photography on paper, 50 x 70 cm , 5,000 EUR (unique piece)
Work 02 2021, digital painting, 70 x 70 cm, 7,800 EUR
Work 26 2021, digital painting, 70 x 70 cm, 7,800 EUR
Work 37 2021, digital painting, 70 x 70 cm, 7,800 EUR
Work 48 2021, digital painting, 70 x 70 cm, 7,800 EUR
Work 54 2021, digital painting, 70 x 70 cm, 7,800 EUR