JAN DE VLIEGHER

LORNE ST
8 - 29 March
Preview: Friday 7 March, 5-7pm

In association with Mike Weiss Gallery, New York, Gow Langsford Gallery is pleased to present the first exhibition of Jan De Vliegher’s paintings in New Zealand.

Jan De Vliegher lives and works in Bruges, Belgium sourcing material and landscapes from regions near his home and capturing them with vigorous brushwork working alla prima, wet paint on wet paint to achieve a sense of vitalized reality, a moment in transition, where colour and composition take precedent over subject matter. Says the artist, “I repeat objects or people within a more or less regular pattern, a pattern that extends outside the borders of the painting. This is my base for that type of composition. I like to disturb, disrupt and obscure the underlying pattern.”

This technique is explored in De Vliegher’s koi fish works which make up one part of his exhibition with Gow Langsford Gallery. The bright colours of the koi contrast with the dark water, creating vibrant yet moody works with a focus on both depth and movement. De Vliegher completes each canvas in one sitting, using several hundred paintbrushes and dozens of pre-mixed colours.

The second series of works to travel from New York focus on a different motif, the porcelain plate. The ritualistic and repetitive compositions mirror those used in the koi paintings, but the subject matter speaks of contemporary collecting as De Vliegher presents collectibles, the often overlooked artefacts of museums, and exalts them. Set against a neutral background, the plates become secondary as the circular shape takes prominence—colour and composition convey the artist’s mastery, while an abstracted form and drip-marks transform the otherwise ornate quality of a porcelain plate. In his idiosyncratic, expressive representation of the painted medallions, De Vliegher rejects the fragility of the plates’ perfectly polished appearance and creates a new object to revere.

Jan De Vliegher received his Master of Fine Arts degree at the Hoger Instituut voor Beeldende Kunsten Sint-Lucas Ghent, in Belgium, in 1986. He has exhibited extensively in Europe including Knokke, Belgium; Venice, Italy; Stockholm, Sweden and Berlin, Germany.