Welcome

Paul Bourgeois has always remained a painter, even if in the course of his evolution the use of paint and canvas has disappeared. He gathers his material along the railway verges and on wasteland, so that his workshop is extended to the most lost corners in his environment. He reanimates sheets of posters pasted together that have decollated themselves from their carrier and stay divested on the ground. It is not specifically the advertisement side - the image on the front- that he takes an interest to, but rather the commercially insignificant back side. The message adressed to the public pretended to have eternal value, but seems to have decayed to sheer vanity. Although the wrinkled remains often demand reinforcement, he tries to preserve their vulnerable character as much as possible and even accentuates it by delivering them to the forces of nature for months. Sometime he crystallizes the dust from his workshop and allows it to whirl down on the work, he fixates it and repeats the process until an interesting play of layers emerges.

His most important artistic and technical act consists of perforating. Meticulously, deliberately, in all peace and quiet he applies a rigid pattern of thousands of piercings to the shape accidentally formed by nature. The fully prepared substrate is drawn upon by the monk in his cell.

With beams of light bouncing over the surface and heightening the relief, the works show the same intensity to the reader as the stone of Rozette to its discoverer. Once again, the exploration can start.

Portfolio

Portfolio

Contact

Opleiding: 1958-1964 Hoger Instituut St. Lucas te Brussel, Atelier: schilderkunst

Prijzen: 1971 Grote prijs voor Tekenkunst “Nationale Wedstrijd”: “Wit - zwart”

2014 Laureaat grote internationale papierbiënnale Rijswijk