M HKA Ensembles

Sculpture, 38.5 × 20 × 19 cm.

Collection: Collectie M HKA, Antwerpen - Donated by Friends of M HKA, 2012 (Inv. no. S0472).

In her oeuvre Nadia Naveau seamlessly unites forms and iconographies from previous periods with those of contemporary society. Anything can become a source of inspiration for her. Every image has its own story. Her material, the use of colour and the formal language is impressively expressive. She does not recognise any boundaries between figuration and abstraction, the baroque and the restrained, the contemporary and the classical, and she mixes all these categories in her works.

Nicholas Heracles shows the carefully finished face of the painter Nick Andrew’s, Naveau’s friend and soul mate, in both contrast and concert with the unfinished style of the rest of the piece, where the colourful and the sober go hand in hand. Heracles (or Hercules) is a figure from Greek mythology, famous for the Twelve Labours he fulfilled at the request of King Eurystheus. Heracles was a true hero, who could accomplish great deeds through a combination of physical power and intelligence. In antiquity he was often depicted as a monumental figure in action, for instance killing a snake or a lion. In this work Naveau refers to the form of the classical portrait bust, but she gives it a contemporary interpretation. Her images never consist of just one form; they are always composed of different forms and/or materials. This is a good example of her many-faceted, polyphonous art.