GNI-RI may2022

Ter Posterie, Roeselare, BE
12/05/2022 - 19/06/2022

Welcome to the opening on Thursday May 12th at 7.30 pm.

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AKRITANUTA, 2015 - 2020
marker, pastel pencil, print
120 x 90 cm, framed 140,6 x 110,6 cm
47.2 x 35.4 inches, framed 55.4 x 43.5 inches

When I encountered water eroded Gonshi rocks during a walk in the Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai, I was confronted with wildly asymmetrical and chaotic natural forms that had been appropriated as art objects. A few years later, I visited the Meissen vase collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and again found myself contemplating beauty that had been highly manipulated. This led to the introduction of plant motifs into my BLOBS, culminating in the Plant Mutation Project. I effaced the natural colours from leaves, stems and fruit, as though they had been subjected to radiation and genetic manipulation, thereby playing God in a virtual future where the goal is ultimate control over humanity and nature.
The still lifes were no longer innocent: yellow strawberries hanging heavy from a strange plant encased in a white exoskeleton are covered by sickly blue petals. Is this regression to the vegetal and animal hybrid confined to plants and trees or can we as humans expect a similar regression in the not so distant future? 
Whatever the answers may be, Plant Mutation Project poses the sort of bewildering questions that we generally like to avoid. Our preconceptions are challenged when the natural landscapes that we have always perceived as our familiar habitat are shown here—much to our consternation—in all their unnaturalness.
The “garden of the future”, complemented by experiments with genetically manipulated products, merges visual poetry with ethical questions. The potential for my surreal strawberry and coral creatures to become reality one day may also strike the viewer as alarming, to say the least. 

GNI-RI may2022

Sint Jacobskerk, Gent, BE
23/05/2022 - 24/07/2022

Welcome to the opening on Wednesday May 25th at 7.30 pm.

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NOITIONEB, 2017 - 2022
polyester, polyurethane and metal
420 x 220 x 215 cm
165.4 x 86.6 x 84.6 inches


NOIPERICK, 2016 - 2022
print
750 x 281,25 cm
295.3 x 110.7 inches

What started out as static surfaces were eventually covered with skin, hide or shell. The smooth exteriors of the polished BLOB sculptures were disguised under a corrupt material. The bellies and breasts appear to be moving, breathing, chaotic beneath their alien substance.
Cosmic spiderwebs stretch out in every direction as they possess a space that is barely containable. Fragile yet impregnable, flowing yet bone-hard, they span both microscopically small and monumentally huge planes.
The viewer may be reminded of the fleshy textures of Francis Bacon, or recognise a tribute to Eadweard James Muybridge, who pioneered moving images with his zoopraxiscope.
These mutations of skin and hide, man-made fossils—from within or outside of known evolutionary processes, whether intentional or the fruits of blind chance—demonstrate their viability in an array of universes. Unabashedly radiating garish colours, they ask about the meaning of their existence: are they, as they seem, part of a dystopian landscape, taking first breaths in the silence following a cosmic storm? Or are they the pulpy beginnings of a new technological era?

GNI-RI may2022
Ter Posterie, Roeselare , BE
12/05/2022 - 19/06/2022

Beeldenroute Zeist 2020-2022 - VAN SLOT TOT CENTRUM
Zeist, NL
16/07/2020 - 15/07/2022
(curated by Henk van den Bosch)

GNI-RI may2022
Sint Jacobs Kerk, Gent , BE
23/05/2022 - 24/07/2022

Puur Wit
De Mijlpaal, Knokke Zoute, BE
02/04/2022 - 03/07/2022

GNI-RI jun2022
Park Ter Beuken, Lokeren , BE
24/06/2022 - 02/10/2022

Kunstenfestival Aardenburg
Aardenburg, NL
16/07/2022 - 04/09/2022
(curated by Benedict Vandaele)

GNI-RI jul2022
K.E.R.K., Middelkerke, BE
01/07/2022 - 28/08/2022

Art Oisterwijk
De Lind, NL
05/06/2022 - 28/06/2022

MUSEION / ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟ
Curated by the imagination of Nick Ervinck
01/11/2021 - 01/09/2022

For the Love of the Master, 25 artists fascinated by Piranesi
the Coach House Gallery, Dublin Castle and the Casino, Dublin, IE
(curated by Hélène Bremer, Mary Heffernan and prof. Matt J. Smith)
17/06/2022 - 18/09/2022

New monograph GNI-RI 2022
Hannibal Publishers  

OLEALDIM
SCK CEN (Belgian Nuclear Research Centre) , Mol, BE

THILAP
private commission, Gent, BE  
fall 2022