JOHAN VAN OECKEL
Johan Van Oeckel is a Belgian artist. His practice is in the tradition of non-objective art, but with an interesting twist. Whereas classical abstraction usually involves a reduction of reality, this artist does it the other way round: he takes a pure form and loads it with information. He starts from nothingness, from the totally indeterminate, and builds up from there.
By using colour and form as the ultimate signifiers, Johan Van Oeckel reaches for principles beyond the visible. His work navigates in a silent, universal space that seems timeless and can be found anywhere and nowhere. It touches on fundamental structures and laws that also apply in language, mathematics, music and even in nature. Ratio and emotion, order and chaos, standstill and agitation always and everywhere present themselves as threads.
There is no beginning and no end, there is no progression in the work. The painting process – lines, matter and layers are deliberately absent. With his purified work, Johan Van Oeckel manages to find a meditative frequency that brings an oasis of cerebral calm to our overstimulated existence.
Johan Van Oeckel has a Master of Fine Arts degree at Sint-Lukas Brussels.
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