Silence is a Message

Hans Vandekerckhove is a slow painter. His work also invites slow viewing. Invariably, he stops time and banishes all sound from his paintings. He allows his world, together with the oil paint, to gradually solidify. Life is put under a bell jar, as it were. Yet Hans Vandekerckhove's work does not shut out the viewer. On the contrary: it opens up and is inviting, even generous. Space, which plays such a crucial role in his paintings, asks to be entered. Like a contemporary Alice, the viewer can step into that colorful and benevolent world: a Wonderland of vast landscapes - with or without a conservatory as a recurring motif - austere modernist architecture, secluded gardens and sometimes a ruin. Often grand and overwhelming, but always protective.