BELGIAN ARTIST STÉPHANE VEREECKEN SETS OUT TO UNCOVER A SECRET AND INVISIBLE WORLD
MILIA WALLENIUS | ARTICULATE #20 | JULY 2019 Belgian multidisciplinary artist Stéphane Vereecken sets out to uncover a secret and invisible world “My images are often a mystery, where the spectator must decode the message in the image.”
Belgian artist Stéphane Vereecken (b. 1970) finds his inspiration in the mysterious and the unknown. With a multidisciplinary vision, formed by his classical studies in several artistic subjects, he sets out to uncover a secret and invisible world.
Vereecken’s preferred medium is photography, which he often combines with painting, sculpture and collage techniques. He is interested in history and the passage of time and favors the camera due to its directness and capability to capture moments, seconds before they pass. Although working with a two-dimensional medium, Vereecken likes to experiment with both movement and volumes. With a cinematographic approach to his work, he rarely leaves anything to chance. Staging his compositions to perfection, his work contains elements familiar from both film and fashion photography. |
Vereecken’s pieces center around the human being, the different stories surrounding our species and our purpose in a world constantly changing. Both raw and sensual, his works explore alternative forms of existence.
Vereecken works in series and sees his current work as a continuation of his first series Rabid Animals, which was started in 1999. Here he investigated the relationship between humanity and savagery, and it is this ‘caricatural bestiality’ that feeds his artistic work.
![]() Vereecken works in series and sees his current work as a continuation of his first series Rabid Animals, which was started in 1999. Here he investigated the relationship between humanity and savagery, and it is this ‘caricatural bestiality’ that feeds his artistic work.
In his more recent series Vereecken has begun to draw on his models, along with the floors and the walls of his compositions. The drawings, fragmented and incomplete, represent an ongoing process, a potential future and a story to be told. Like windows to another dimension, Vereecken’s works offer immortalized glimpses of hidden narratives and moments from lives. |
This awareness of passing time, which is present in his art, make his pieces both beautifully brutal and melancholic, reminding us of our own mortality. Present and absent at the same time, his subject matters are like locked in a timeless space, somewhere between dream and reality.
Filled with paradoxes Vereecken’s works are at times dark, at times delightful and at times both. They reflect reality with a fairytale-like twist. Playing with our minds and senses, Vereecken creates a Lynchian meta reality, recognizable, yet not quite reality as we know it. As if looking at this surreal universe of magic realism through a keyhole, we become aware that we can observe, but not interfere. This peeping aspect creates an aura of shameful unease mixed with nervous enthusiasm. The experiencing of Vereecken’s work feels dangerous and intrusive, yet fun and exciting. Vereecken’s works are innocent, intimate, fresh and erotic. Often dealing with themes related to the nature of humanity, Vereecken invites us to explore our hidden emotions and deep desires, and in the process question who we are, where we are and where we wish to go from here. This article about STEPHANE VEREECKEN takes part of ARTICULATE #20. Read, download or order your print version of the full publication below
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