Damien De Lepeleire
(Elsene,
1965 )
Since becoming the youngest artist ever to win the Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge in 1986, Damien De Lepeleire has been working in very diverse series on a nevertheless coherent oeuvre. First and foremost, he is a painter and uses ink, watercolor, oil and enamel paint to explore the subtle plasticity of matter and pictorial depth in flat images. In addition, he is fascinated by the relationship between original and copy. This research leads him to new processes, such as copying and cutting up images to then offer a new perspective on them through a collage or a kind of mosaic form. By cutting out photos of sculptures, sticking them on cardboard or aluminum and setting them upright (“Pop-up Art”), he also gives images a new spatiality. De Lepeleire draws inspiration mostly from early, imperfect reproductions of sculptures and mosaics from classical antiquity, Renaissance sculptures, African masks and Chinese art, but equally from works by modern masters. In each case, his images of sculptures perpetuate and revalue the original, while the aberrant form enables a new vision and grants autonomy to the copy.
