JAN VAN IMSCHOOT

‘I’m a child of painting and of cinema, a Flemish painter and a Latino-Belgian surrealist, with language and images as my partners. Thank you Rik Wouters, thank you René, thank you Marcel’ explains the artist, who constantly questions the potential of painting.

In Amore Dormiente, Jan Van Imschoot tackles themes such as love, sexual desire, lust and vengeance with black backgrounds and flamboyant colours, naked bodies in motion and powerful gestures.

Freed from the academic straitjacket of the art world imposed by the ‘undertakers’, Van Imschoot creates an extraordinary body of work with expressive blocks of colours, where autobiographical, symbolic and historical references rub shoulders in radical and phantasmagorical canvases inhabited by dwarfs, angels, lovers and the dying.

‘There is no masterpiece in existence where extremes do not crave each other. There can be no hell without heaven; no body without a soul; no love without complacency. Do we ever shed these core beliefs?’ enquires the artist.

Born in Ghent in 1963, widely exhibited in Belgium and on the international scene, Jan Van Imschoot left Belgium in 2013 for the anonymity and inspiration of the French countryside. The Ghent S.M.A.K. held a major solo exhibition of his work in 2002. More recently, Jan Van Imschoot’s paintings have been shown at the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2005), Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle (2008), The National Art Museum of China, Beijing, (2010) and Fondation Volume! in Rome (2012). In 2018, he took part in the Sanguine/Bloedrood group exhibition created by Luc Tuymans for the M HKA (Anvers Museum of Contemporary Art) and the Fondazione Prada, which sets the teachings of the masters of baroque against the artistic visions of major contemporary artists.