Synopsis
Sergio De Beukelaer has been working on a self-confident and uncompromising oeuvre of paintings for over 20 years. The work of Sergio De Beukelaer appears simple and colorful but unites all kinds of apparent contradictions. Although his painting looks sleek, formal, geometric and abstract, it always starts out from a strong desire for reality. It is not the reality itself that interests him. He is concerned with a translation thereof.
Through visual thinking and acting, he always achieves a certain form of abstraction within the formal framework of painting. Seemingly effortlessly, his art navigates between surface and space, text and image, intellectual seriousness and playful irony, painting and sculpture. Via the original and inimitable concept of the fat canvas, a three-dimensional painting, the artist breaks down the boundaries of classical painting. His paintings appropriate the space and generate a powerful visual impact on their environment. (cat.) is a bold and beautiful monograph of paintings and installations that look simple but combines a variety of paradoxes.
Text in English and Dutch.
About the Author
Sergio De Beukelaer (°1971) lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. De Beukelaer uses numerous codes of post-modernistic art from the 1960s and 1970s, such as abstraction, geometry, monochrome, and the “hard edge” technique but he does so with an irony and playfulness that cannot be reconciled with the attitude of minimalists and fundamental painters. Apparent contrasts, such as figuration and abstraction, flat and spatial, word and image, painting and sculpture, both contaminate and fertilise one another. In the concept of the “fat.canvas”, a three-dimensional painting, the artist leaves the field of classical painting and conquers the painting the space. The shapes, colors and dimensions of De Beukelaer’s works are tempting, but behind the power of these compact images, a surprising impact lurks on closer inspection.
Sergio De Beukelaer is an alumini of The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Anwerp. Solo shows include: 2019 NO POP- NO UP, Gent (BE) - 2017; On.Titled, PLUS-ONE Gallery, Antwerp, (BE) - 2016; Sub.Titled, PLUS-ONE Gallery, Antwerp, (BE) - 2015; THE.SEQUEL, Galerie Annie Gentils, Antwerp, (BE) - 2013; The.Target.Series, Galerie Ronny Van de Velde, Knokke, (BE) - 2008; Format, Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York, (US) - 2007; Watch More Canvas, ABA Art, Palma, (ES) - 2004; Roomservice, Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York, (US) ARCO, Madrid, (ES) - 2003; Processing, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp, (BE) - 2001; At Random, Provinciaal Centrum voor Beeldende Kunsten, Hasselt, (BE) - Space Location, Van Laere Contemporary Art, Antwerp, (BE) - 2000; Oil On Fat.canvas - Objects & Drawings, Van Laere Contemporary Art, Antwerp.
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