In 2011 I made the decision to create a framework with serious limitations and restrictions to streamline my creativity.
I was suffering from a lack of direction, with a boundless exploration of ever more creative experiments (3D cgi, digital illustration, animation, writing, ...).
Although to this day I still create in a very varied way, for the past decade the creation of miniature paintings has been an anchor, used to process important phases in my own life, and to crystalize certain ideas.

Initially I restricted color use to blue, red and yellow, but starting from 2015 I've introduced new colors. But the way of working stayed mostly the same; to create as simple a form as possible, often symbolic, to process certain inner processes. All these paintings have been painted on the first batch of business cards I've ever ordered. This is ofcourse also a symbolic gesture. I initially ordered the business cards to establish and profile myself as an artist, but as life progressed I realized that identity is born from our activity, and not the other way around. So to this day, I ritually overpaint the concept of who I should be, or the mental image I once had of myself, and in this process a much more delicate, intimate and often enigmatic picture emerges about who or what I really am.

As simple as some of the paintings may be on their own, if they are mixed together they rapidly become as complex and enigmatic as life itself. In the quest and search for meaning, I find peace in the moment I create a single image, only to see it inevitably return to the sea of chaos where it was born from.
Meaning quickly changes form and also reflects meaninglessness. Nothing and everything play their eternal game together. Some paintings were painted specifically for friends as a gift. Others were born from a clear concept and fit together as a series.

Looking back on the past ten years, I am now also actively exploring how new meaning can emerge from mixing these minatures together and using them as building blocks to create new mosaic images. An important theme I reflect upon is transience, as it is at the core of life. My life has been a life long struggle between holding on to and letting go, and to find a balance in this process. The act of painting serves both as a way to let go, release a certain energy in a new shape, but is also a way of holding on, because the new painting is now a part of a collection of paintings. Similarly I also hold on to a vast archive of photographs. To process these photographs into new images built from my paintings, for example in my memory strips, allows me to let go, but again, a new form emerges that takes its place. The cycle continues endlessly, like life and death. The creative process remains at the center, the renewal of life.

The process of digital destruction of an image is also interesting in this regard and a path I look forward on exploring.

28th april 2022, Ghent BE