artist/ De Limbourg

Belgique

Born in Verviers, the birthplace of my family, art was an obvious and necessary choice from an early age. My secondary art studies continued at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, in Lucien Massart’s studio, where paper became my favourite medium. When I left the Academy in 1999, an opportunity arose to work as a make-up artist for theatre, film and advertising. Painting faces for a few years enabled me to get by, but from 2004 onwards, a number of major accolades enabled me to devote myself entirely to painting.

First, there’s paper, a piece of material that captivates me by its texture, its weight, its nature and its quality. Japanese paper gives me a great deal of freedom; it comes alive under the folds and creases, creating a vibrant background. Coated, brushed and coloured, it takes on urban imprints, like manhole covers, or fragments of nature, like bark. This starting point, half dream, half real, leads to a physical and impulsive work, combining strength and delicacy, inspired by everyday life. Through repetition, these gestures, performed a thousand times over, acquire a symbolic and existential dimension.

Then begins a long inner journey. The watercolours and gouache settle into a meditative dance, a coloured trance, luminous, patient, long, painful and infinite. Some see traces of art brut or primitive art, and they may be right. I’m looking for a reinvented freedom, an exploration of impulses, a quest for appeasement through this ritual to awaken the primordial meaning of the act of painting. These paintings are an invitation to an inner journey, to look at oneself with warmth and kindness. It’s an invitation to the extraordinary. Painting seems to be born of a passion for love, a passion to be shared through each work, each trace, each colour.