RINUS VAN DE VELDE

Van de Velde’s two previous solo exhibitions at Gallery Baton showed him to be an adventurous artist who does not shy away from working in multiple media and whose efforts to combine diverse media such as painting, film, installation, and sculpture have seen him progressing toward a single plot that is loosely woven yet consistent. His various selves, each taking shape with its own persona and roles, experience unique lives within their respective narrative worlds, in a development that manifests in timely ways through the media of film, painting, and sculpture. In the process, Van de Velde has shown who he is and where his interests lie, densely crafting a unique worldview with few precedents.

The artist’s two-dimensional work is frequently characterized by its use of a two-tiered structure of image and text. In addition to being a standard layout feature familiar to us from newspapers, magazines, and other media, this is also a way to maintain a deliberate distance from the kind of objective truth that such media have conventionally ensured. His assertion that we trust in images too readily suggests that these adapted layouts are used in his work as a device to allow for the free blurring of reality and fiction. Intriguingly, an important clue toward understanding his artistic stance can be found in Gerhard Richter(b. 1932)’s comments about his own painting style: “What I’m attempting in each picture is nothing other than this . . . to bring together, in a living and viable way, the most different and the most contradictory elements in the greatest possible freedom.”

A previous European solo exhibition in 2023—held at the Museum Voorlinden in the Netherlands—was entitled Armchair voyager, a name that speaks to the artist’s tendency to devote himself to his work while rarely leaving his studio. While preparing for this exhibition, Van de Velde described enjoying the experience of imaginary conversations with the Impressionist artists who adhered to an approach of “plein-air” painting. At the same time, he asks whether he too could fairly be described as a plein-air painter—as someone who has quietly captured his subjects from the plains and different corners of the world in his own imagination.

Much like a proficient conductor attuning different instruments and notes to produce harmonies, Van de Velde has effectively woven together various narrative threads from the intricate layers of the world he has explored. He eagerly anticipates their development as they approach a critical point.

Rinus Van de Velde lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Major solo exhibitions include I Want to Eat Mango in the Bathtub (Art Sonje Center, Space Isu; Jeonnam Museum of Art, KR, 2024), The Armchair Voyager (Museum Voorlinden, NL, 2023), Inner Travels (BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, BE, 2022), I’d Rather Stay at Home, ... (Kunstmuseum Luzern, CH, 2021), La Ruta Natural (Frac des Pays de la Loire, FR, 2021), andThe Villagers (Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, ES, 2020). His works are in the collections of leading art institutions including S.M.A.K.(Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst), BE, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, BE, Belfius Art Collection, BE, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, BE, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, NL, Museum Voorlinden, NL, CAC Málaga, ES, Art Sonje Center, KR, and Jeonnam Museum of Art, KR.