Still Life? - PBF04 / Bert Danckaert
15 November to 21 December 2019
Bert Danckaert captures the beauty of empty public spaces. Through his compositions, the Belgian artist creates still lives that cannot be identified at first sight.
In his series True Nature, urban landscapes emerge from his photographs resembling abstract paintings. Bert Danckaert builds carefully planned landscapes through cropping and framing, displaying an interest in colors, texture, and architecture. Geometric and organic shapes are part of his visual language.
Bert Danckaert’s photos uncover the magic hidden in every corner of the cities he explored, potentially leading the viewers to look for this magic in their future walks.
« Colour is also very present in Bert Danckaert’s work, which is produced not through experimentation with light, but through perceptual data drawn from an existing reality that Danckaert throws into relief to expose its inherent composition. These scenes from urban environments are more or less the same in every large city in the world. Danckaert frames them almost as if they were abstract paintings, emphasizing a geometry of coloured planes from which elements of the urban landscape emerge. These images often denote a slightly derisory attempt to re-create nature as artificial within an inimical, often unkempt environment – an utter departure from the flashy, stylish monuments with which we associate the identity of cities. » - Jacques Doyon, translated by Käthe Roth.
