SCULPTURES OF STONES CAHIER 1: RONNY DE Format: Paperback

Sculptures of Stones by Ronny Delrue depict female statues that are either made of bricks or covered with masonry-like patterns. They form a critical riposte to the heroic male statues of former leaders that are scattered around our cities. Furthermore, the forms also broaden our prior knowledge of the depiction of figures in the public sphere. Sculptures of Stones shows drawing to be a form of spontaneous expression. It offers an alternative to the all-pervasive means of instant communication that govern the world today, namely digital tools and social media systems. Delrue’s drawings are both action and representation. Unlike the electronic devices, a drawing redeems the option of an unmediated, direct action and reflection in and on the world. It re-positions the function of the artist as a free, sovereign subject, who touches the world and is ready to participate and influence history.

English, Dutch and French.

Ronny Delrue's (°1957) paintings are congeals of emotional and intellectual experiences. His diary entries provide the breeding ground for his paintings. Opposites such as abstraction and figuration, beautiful and ugly, knowing and forgetting are essential to him. Delrue initially worked expressionistically. Since then, his work has continued to relate to expressionism, in the sense that he consciously ignores it: the expressionist gesture is restrained, excesses are suppressed. The often small canvases are not literal translations of his feelings, but reflections on them. What you think is painting, turns out to be painting away. The painter does not improve or add, but makes disappear. The tension between the will and the fear of destruction plays a major role in his work. Certain figures, present in the initial stages of the painting process, may have become invisible in the end result, but they still remain suspect. It is such twilight zones that interest Delrue. The edges of his canvases show the underlying layers of color and reveal something of the history of the canvas. In other words, an image does not tell everything at once, but reveals something different each time. The viewer can get lost in what the work can be.