Given only one life, …
2019
Drawing, 240 x 400 cm.
Materials: Charcoal, canvas
Collection: Courtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp.
A constructed world of representation is the core of Rinus Van de Velde’s drawings and installations. His large-scale charcoal drawings are based on stage sets, in which he is regularly the main subject. Referring to the self-mythologising of canonical figures from Western art history, his carefully crafted portraits should rather be seen as being an alter-ego. Van de Velde’s new painting, together with a series of hand-made ‘props’ used for many of his paintings, refers to the way Bolaño placed himself as an alter-ego in his book Antwerp, which he also continued to do in many of his later books. The self can be a space to explore fiction and how we might want to see our narratives in the world.
