#NEWSLETTER June 2020

Summer exhibition at #VillaLesZéphyrs, Middelkerke - BE

Villa Les Zéphyrs - Middelkerke, BE
06/06/2020 - 30/09/2020

Villa Les Zéphyrs, an Art-Nouveau building by Henri Van de Velde in Middelkerke was transformed into a museum and is now the scenery of a summer exhibition. Together with other artists such as Elodie Antoine, Lisette de Greeuw and Peter Depelchin the works of Nick Ervinck displayed. With works as AELBWARTS, NEBKATROBS, ONIEPARG and NOITALS there is a very interesting combination of the PLANT MUTATION series and the MOTION SERIES.

Curated by: Els Wuyts

 

NEBKATROBS, 2017
3D print, plexi and wood
15 x 17 x 92 cm

AELBWARTS gold, 2013 - 2018 3D print, gold 28 x 23 x 25 cm		NEBKATROBS (detail), 2017 3D print, plexi and wood 15 x 17 x 92 cm
AELBWARTS is the modern version of the tradtional still life with fruit. In the seventeenth century, strawberries stood for humbleness because they grow low at the ground. This futuristic example stands miles away from humbleness. Proud it reaches for the sky combining the elegance of the leafs with the heavy blob form of the strawberry. This sculpture questions the status of the organic in the 21th century. Fruit and plants are being manipulated to better meet our standards or just to experiment. At universities people are envestiganting full time on the strawberry. Thanks to the 3D printer we are even able to print our own designed food. It is intriguing that we can manipulate and personalize food as if it were our little personal artworks. It is fascinating to think of the future and the possibility that children might create their toys out of a mix of artificial, biological and robotic elements while their parents prepare their meal with yellow strawberries.		This series of mutated plant sculptures, NEBKATROBS, is based on the cacao bean and experiments with genetic engineering. The roots of the cacao tree readily absorb juices from neighbouring plants - often banana trees - which is why a pronounced banana flavour can often be discerned in unadulterated cacao. This fact appealed to Ervinck’s imagination. In NEBKATROBS, mutated cacao beans are partially covered in gold. They look like objets trouvés collected in a cabinet of curiosities. Or fruit, sea creatures, shells, from a future world of beautiful mutations. But when the viewer looks more closely, other details start to emerge: teeth, tentacles, flesh. Once more, Ervinck reveals the dark, ominous depths under the shiny surface.
NOITALS, 2015 - 2016 3D print 44 x 51 x 43 cm		ONIEPARG, 2018 print 51 x 51 cm , framed 53 x 53 cm
The 3D printed sculpture NOITALS is reminiscent of the skeleton of an eerie prehistoric animal, and just like the Rorschach inkblots, different onlookers will perceive different things in its geometry. It links back to the past by presenting an homage to Eadweard J. Muybridge, the inventor of the Zoopraxiscope and photography pioneer, as it aims to create movement and dynamism in a static object. Nick Ervinck explores the boundaries between the physical and the imaginary, the traditional and the modern, architecture and sculpture. Constantly pushing the frontiers on what is spatially possible, he is a pioneer in the use of 3D Printing in art. The originality of his sculptures is largely due to the balancing act Ervinck manages to perform between classic art and modern technology. While learning about art as a student, he became fascinated with computers and digital design. Yet, he still retains that dimension of craftsmanship as he finishes each printed part by hand and incorporates traditional elements of sculpture such as a pedestal.		ONIEPARG, signifying the mutation of a grapevine, is a part of Nick Ervinck's larger series of PLANT MUTATION. Through discoloration and disformation this artwork poses questions to the use of genetic modification of our food. It makes us wonder about the posibility's, but also about the concequences. The grape here portrayed by Nick Ervinck poses a very different and yet similar image of the grape in a classical still life in which the fruit is often a symbol for extravagance as well as transiency. Grapes are very much determined by an image of perfection, the vine with his beautiful shaped grapes aranged in a ratio that results in a cone shaped branch. In ONIEPARG this ratio is lost, but even though the positioning may seem arbitrary, there is a certain logic to structure of this artwork. Ikebana is a Japanese art of aranging flowers in a very percise position which plays with lines, shapes and forms in order to express creativity. This is also the foundation on which the artwork is structured.

GNI_RI Ceramics at Johan Valcke

Valcke Art Gallery - Gent, BE
04/07/2020 - 15/08/2020

VERNISSAGE: Saturday 4 July and sunday 5 July 2020 from 2 to 6 p.m.

In his ceramic works, Nick uses 3D experiments to explore ideas of both organic (references to nature and food) and genetically engineered life forms. Gonshi rocks and Ikebana are also a source of inspiration. Nick Ervinck, aims to let architecture and sculpture meet, with focus on shape and lines, and of course colours. With these sculptures, he investigates how to use today’s techniques to transcend or continue the craftsmanship of the past. The ceramics shock their spectator with a strong expressiveness. The overwhelmingly powerful colours influence the perception to the extent that the forms can no longer be interpreted within a contemporary framework.

BOBNARAK, 2016 - 2017 ceramic 33 x 27 x 25 cm		CORBOLIAT, 2015 ceramic 38 x 25 x 32 cm

Art Autun

Musée Rolin and Panopticon - Autun, Bourgogne, FR
04/07/2020 - 27/09/2020

Art Autun is an exhibition that combines different fields an eras of art in a very unique historical context of the 15th century palace of Nicolas Rolin and the Circular Prison of Autun.

Artists: Wim Delvoye, Thierry De Cordier, Jan Vanriet, Cindy Wright, Robert Devriendt, Karin Hanssen, Jan De Maesschalck, Arpaïs Du Bois, Anton Cotteleer, Peter de Cupere, Sarah De Vos, Nick Ervinck, Philip Aguirre y Otegui, Hans Vandekerckhove, Reniere&Depla, Koen Broucke, Elke Andreas Boon, Thomas Lerooy, Johan Clarysse, Mireille Blanc, Han Yaqun, Edmée Laurin, Michael Filez, Thimothée Schelstraete, Laura Vandewynckel and Stief Desmet.

Curated by: Reniere&Depla

MINOTERCERIK, 2017 ceramic 21 x 20 x 16 cm		CORTURAP, 2016 ceramic 22 x 22 x 18 cm

In his early works, Nick Ervinck questions the use and the perception of constructive elements such as material, proportions, space, colour and volume. He endeavours to trigger interaction between virtual constructions and hand-made sculptures. Polymorphic, synthetic forms are found in the ‘seemingly’ authentic rooms, racks and platforms and are brought to life as mutated molecules by means of an artistic computer simulation. In Ervinck’s conception wood is flexible, objects appear from the ground up, rooms are multi-directional movable – everything is in disorder corresponding to common sense. The world in which the artist operates is a digitally fictionalized one, constructed and deconstructed by an omniscient creator and without any limitations.

KOLBSTOR tells of a mental shift, in which Ervinck raised once fragmentary pieces of a sculpture to a pedestal, appointing them as finished works of art. In his student years, Ervinck sought for beauty and soul in the minimal, the worn out and in untreated, raw materials.  KOLBSTOR is an homage to Franz West, an Austrian artist who has made artworks out of plaster, papier-mâché, wire, polyester, aluminium and ordinary materials.

With KOLBSTOR, Ervinck ‘acts without history’ (see: Frank vande Veire, De geplooide voorstelling): sculpting is not about the prepared or the made-up, but about the acting-thinking without preconceived goals, without justification or statement. Ervinck’s research on the characteristics of the sculpture thus result in pure poetry.

KOLBSTOR, 2003
cardboard, chalk, gauze, iron, vubonite and weels
75 x 115 x 80 cm

Current and upcoming projects