After the war, he settled in Brussels. There, he was co-founder of Jeune Peinture Belge and also had contacts with Cobra. In this period, his lasting friendship with Pierre Alechinsky and Hugo Claus also came about. In 1956, he went to the United States, where he was head of the painting department of the school of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 1974 he found a new home in the circle around gallery De Zwarte Panter in Antwerp. Jan Cox considered his artistry as an artistic and humanistic project. He painted surreal and magical scenes but also numerous haunting expressionist works. He chose classical themes: Orpheus, Homer’s Iliad, Judith and Holofernes, the Passion of Christ, in which autobiographical references merge with general human problems. They invite the viewer to reflect on the human condition, the hopes and terrors of the modern world.
Les (Dés)habilleuses
€29.95For Les (Dés)Habilleuses, photographer Eva Rossie was inspired by gender roles and Laarne Castle. The former inhabitants of the castle are visually explored, room by room, through her own lens of the female gaze. The dresser is the main character. Because of her rather intimate position, she used to hear and see everything. There lies a contradiction within the dresser: she was like a panoptic secret camera, but she found herself in a vulnerable position at the same time. Rossie plays with the disparity between those who cover and reveal, those who see and hear everything, those who are kept small, and those who refuse the confinement of their shackles. Rossie’s characters invite a contemporary view on gender, without losing sight of history, since it is precisely what has been that serves as a starting point in the search for an alternative, contemporary view of what people can be. Presented to you are layered pictures like film stills with a vulnerable edge.
30 x 24 cm
112 p, soft cover
Bilingual edition: Dutch / English