What three words describe your art?
Juicy, humorous, edgy.
What do you want to evoke with your work?
I love to shock people in presenting them pornographic, taboo-like, alienating but very recognizable situations. I like to tease them with the struggle of looking (away).
I often draw my inspiration from the infinite source of amateur porn. Its ambiguity: staging an apparent “universal” pornographic scene with your own body in the privacy of your own house thrills me.
All I can see is the very private vulnerability and the failed desire to answer to the expectations of the viewer. The alienating presence of both individuality and anonymity makes me dream.
I replace the fake gloss of constructed desire with the truth of their vulnerability until the image gets so intimate that you almost feel ashamed of looking.
In Love For The Flesh I also wanted to share this vulnerability. The intimacy of two bodies, intertwined, with absolutely no focus on gender or body standards. Nothing more than the simple and basic idea of ‘love for the flesh.’
It represents what matters most. Certainly today in Corona times. A shared intimacy and vulnerability, regardless of societal expectations.
Who inspires you?
The ideas and mindset of Dadaism: its explicit taste for shock and violence, the will to break down all artistic conventions, its playful approach towards gender identities… I embed it into my own practice: surfing on the limits of what is socially accepted and experimenting with other realities.
I very much enjoy the work of Joëlle Dubois, Fernando Botero and Tara Booth for their atypical bodies in non-conventional and humorous settings.
My all-time favorite artistic saint is David Hockney. The way he treats shapes, objects and colors is unprecedented. Even more, his portrayal of swimming pools is divine. It feeds a fetish: the swimming pool symbolizes the ultimate – but still controllable - freedom to me.
Finally, the work of Bart Spitaels has an enchanting impression on me. His abstract translation of reality into the perfect game of lines and colors is mind-blowing. I just can’t stop looking at it.
How would others describe you?
Spontaneous, nervous, sensitive, moody.
Whose work is on your walls at home?
Everything hanging on our walls is our own work: my girlfriend Elise Debrock is a painter too. To us, it is a great way of testing, observing and discussing certain works with each other.
My favorite – hanging in the kitchen – is a Christmas gift from Elise: a painting of our opened fridge, another fetish of mine. Everywhere I go I feel the urge to open the fridge and get a glimpse of its secrets, as an intimate process of getting to know the person who lives there.
What is your biggest fear?
Fear itself. I am frightened to be confronted with a mass of anxious people and to get sucked in.
What art forms speak the most to you?
Painting, drawing and applied arts. I love tapestry, ceramics and embroidery. The patience it requires. The beauty of its simplicity.
What makes you nervous?
I hate the noise of clinging pots and pans, sudden sneezing and chewing. I tend to feel overwhelmed quite quickly.
What makes you laugh?
I love sarcasm, it makes me giggle.
What do you look forward to in the future?
Touching people again.
Thank you, Sophie!