About

Hear It From Me

WILFRIED VAN GAVER:

PEOPLE AND DRAMA AND ART

Always people are central in my work: men and their more or less hidden psychology, men and their charismatic potential. Attitudes and expressions reveal states of mind; colours, light and shadow highlight characteristics. Literally.

After an early, prudently successfull start in the World of Art, the ongoing economic crisis of the’90-ies hit and tore up the best-made plans. Mine as well. Though there never was a real stop to producing and having exhibitions, the latter were done with greater reluctance, until making art became a strictly private activity, done in seclusion. In the same line lay the move to to a remote farmhouse, where there was room for pondering and quiet experimenting with techniques and subjects.

Meanwhile I got the opportunity to broaden my theoretical horizons and artistic experience through working for an uptown gallery and helping with the researching and curating of dead peoples’ art. My subsequent activities in a high-ranking auction-house  were hardly different, though the artists involved were far longer gone.

After a while, a new creative tension stirred me into a new approach to painting: first via some landscapes (of whom a few in negative colors) which would indicate new paths , then through some heads and faces plucked from the internet… But it all started for real in May 2016, with a visit to Madrid, where I saw Velazquez and Georges de la Tour in the Prado and Joaquin Sorolla in his own museum.

But more importantly: in Madrid lived Pep…

The meeting with this model had the effect of a shock-wave, a tsunami. His physical appearance and personality were so overwhelming that the semi-lethargy of years was promptly swept away. Painting was henceforth necessary and done in a frenzy. The first portraits were based on the handful of poses of our first meeting and were done in an athmosphere of intense surprise and even intenser confusion.  Then, as the consciousness of my creative and technical competence grew, I also grew convinced of the exceptional power of the model himself.  As a result came a more systematic approach of him as a subject.  This exceptional man indeed turned out to be a strong Muse -and me thinking a muse was a pallid nymph wearing laurels…

Painting itself is easy, it is controlling the adherent emotions that is the heavier task. Evidently it is very satisfying to paint themes allowing the expression of strong feelings: it also makes for honesty and authenticity. On the other hand, the same burns the soul as the robe of Nessos: Inspiration is paid for with heart-blood, sweat, tears and peace of mind. Art is drama, or at the least finds its origin there.

And one never gets used to drama, it is always new…