Bernard Frize - Guy Mees - Daan Van Golden
25 Apr - 25 May 2013
Bernard Frize
“I always try to reach a point where there's not just one thing on the canvas, a single thing being shown, but a paradox, an antagonism, a difficulty at work. I think it's that, really. I try to have a confrontation in play between the things.
I try to do things that are ordinary, that are everyday, that are very simple and that anyone could do. This is not always evident because painting is something extremely elaborate and sophisticated, something, what's more, that refers back to a whole history of painting. That may be why I fall back on material things, because I think it's very difficult to say: "There, that 's it ". There is no equivalence between painting and language, otherwise it would have been verbalised. It's about a whole bundle of things that are conveyed in the actual experience of the painting. A painting is an incredible object: it's flat, facing you, you stand facing it - I mean, it's an incredible moment which catalyses emotions, unusual sensations. Whether one is looking at a monochrome canvas or a Rubens, one is always standing facing it, confronting it, activating one's emotions and one's intelligence. One is always in a dialogue with this object.”
(Bernard Frize, interviewed by Irmeline Lebeer, 2003)
Megi, 2004
177 x 220 cm
acrylic and resin on canvas
Ritz, 2000
180 x 220 cm
acrylic and resin on canvas
“I always try to reach a point where there's not just one thing on the canvas, a single thing being shown, but a paradox, an antagonism, a difficulty at work. I think it's that, really. I try to have a confrontation in play between the things.
I try to do things that are ordinary, that are everyday, that are very simple and that anyone could do. This is not always evident because painting is something extremely elaborate and sophisticated, something, what's more, that refers back to a whole history of painting. That may be why I fall back on material things, because I think it's very difficult to say: "There, that 's it ". There is no equivalence between painting and language, otherwise it would have been verbalised. It's about a whole bundle of things that are conveyed in the actual experience of the painting. A painting is an incredible object: it's flat, facing you, you stand facing it - I mean, it's an incredible moment which catalyses emotions, unusual sensations. Whether one is looking at a monochrome canvas or a Rubens, one is always standing facing it, confronting it, activating one's emotions and one's intelligence. One is always in a dialogue with this object.”
(Bernard Frize, interviewed by Irmeline Lebeer, 2003)
Megi, 2004
177 x 220 cm
acrylic and resin on canvas
Ritz, 2000
180 x 220 cm
acrylic and resin on canvas