How do you describe your own art practice?
I sculpt and install, collect and assemble, select and transform. I cover things up with leather and fabric relentlessly. I also have a side practice of making pieces of clothing, mostly out of leather, always employing used material.
I’m interested in that which remains – materials and objects that are of no interest to most people, that have lost their value and probably their function.
I find tremendous joy and freedom in using materials that are considered waste and that I find in my vicinity. It’s the scarcity, the limited quantity and the effect the passing of time has had on the material that I’m interested in.
I’m very open to the unexpected nature of my findings and how they put me on creative paths that I couldn’t have necessarily anticipated or imagined. It’s an instinctive relationship to making.
Considering most of the things I work with have lived lives of their own and have certain characteristics which stem from this, the pieces of art are naturally site-specific.
Which question or theme is central in your work?
Identity, capacity for transformation, becoming and emancipation. Questions of value and worth, memory and storytelling.
What was your first experience with art?
It seems I don’t have a clear answer to this regarding art specifically. But as a small child I remember going to my grandparents’ house and always watching the same two movies; Under the cherry moon (1986) by Prince and a movie about the life of Tina Turner; Tina (1993)
Still today I feel like I’m touched by cinema and music in a way that very rarely happens when I’m confronted to contemporary art.
As an adolescent I saw Dancer in the dark (2000) on tv and couldn’t help but feel there was a whole world out there that I didn’t know yet.
What is your greatest source of inspiration?
Fabric – its presence and importance in people’s homes and on their bodies, its materiality, its colours, its functions, its lines and configuration.
I’m also inspired by and intentionally look for that which wasn’t planned, which just happened, which just is and its perfection.
And then maybe more generally daily life – its light, textures and shapes. The relationships and emotional bonds which inhabit it.
What do you need in order to create your work?
Time, solitude, space and matter.
What work or artist has most recently surprised you?
At S.M.A.K. Ghent, I recently saw a video installation by Aziz Hazara called Bow Echo (2019). It was made out of five imposing screens showing five different children trying to brave strong to immensely strong winds whilst climbing a mountain. Arriving on the mountain top, each child was playing or was trying to play a kazoo.
