Jan Van Imschoot
Na Abraham (Ste Cécile)
2024
€850,00
14 layer silkscreen print on Fabriano Artistico Tradition
25 x 35 cm
Edition of 15 copies, signed and numbered by the artist
Comes with a copy of the publication Jan Van Imschoot – The End Is Never Near
about this work
In the historic town hall of Kortrijk, Jan Van Imschoot’s monumental mural Monument for 1302, a contemporary evocation of the Battle of the Golden Spurs from 1302, has been on view for many years. In this mural, the artist draws a link between the historic battle and its 19th and 20th-century perception and instrumentalization of it. One perspective is the contrast between Ernest Claes, who in the 1969 Belgian television series Wij, Heren van Zichem had the character de Witte play the Lion of Flanders, and Hendrik Conscience, who in 1838 wrote The Lion of Flanders on the orders of Leopold I. The artist was inspired by the tension between Flemish popular nationalism and Belgian state nationalism.
For the Kortrijk Triennale, in the adjacent room Van Imschoot presents a mix of original design drawings for Monument for 1302 and new drawings inspired by the work of Abraham van Diepenbeeck. This edition is a silkscreen print based on one of Van Imschoot’s drawings — after van Diepenbeeck — of St. Cécilia, the patron saint of musicians. Van Diepenbeeck’s version is in the collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum.
about Jan Van Imschoot
Jan Van Imschoot’s work explores the possibilities of painting as a medium, and touches on themes of freedom, cenorship, and the inherent violence of political and ideological systems. He belongs to a generation of artists who laid the foundations for the critical reappraisal of figurative painting during the 1990s. Among his peers, Van Imschoot’s work occupies a unique place due to the profound art-historical awareness from which he paints. He approaches contemporary subjects such as gender, identity, war and peace from inspiration sources such as Dutch 17th- century painting, the work of Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Goya and Manet.
Van Imschoot self-describes his technique as ‘anarcho-baroque,’ categorized by a distortion of perspective, figures in motion, and strong, dark tones. His brushwork is both erratic and detailed, and his composition appears intentionally off-kilter, unsettling, and disorienting.
more...
