M HKA Ensembles

Installation, 80 x 80 x 80 cm.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community (Inv. no. BK006138).

Jan Van Oost is a painter by training, but even back in his student days his love for sculpture was clear. The dialogue that emerges between a piece of sculpture and the space where it is shown, fascinates him. Themes such as seduction, mortality and death run like a common thread throughout this artist's oeuvre. His works breathe a certain melancholy to do with our tragic human destiny, caught in the cycle of procreation and death.

A black-draped mannequin doll sits huddled in the corner of a room, face hidden under her long, black hair. The pose of this life-size and lifelike sculpture reminds us of the carbonized, lava-petrified remains of what was once a human being. The figure is alone and isolated. She shuts herself off from the viewer and the world surrounding her.

Jan Van Oost plays a game of attraction and repulsion. Contrasting notions such as life and death, Eros and Thanatos, give the art work meaning. The artist stages, in a way that is at once whimsical and direct, his highly personal vision of the female body. So doing, he calls into question and destabilizes our own view of that body and its intimate tragedy. His works create frames of mood within which viewer, sculpture and surroundings are set in dialogue. Moreover, the works go beyond the individual and serve as bearers of silent witness to the human condition generally.