Guy Van Bossche
(Mortsel,
1952 )
Guy Van Bossche belongs to a select group of Belgian painters who introduced a new style of neo-figurative, subdued painting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, fuelled by fundamental doubt and profound distrust of a visual culture defined by technology. They were reacting against the dominance of Conceptual Art and other art forms perceived to be more progressive in the previous decades. The ‘Antwerp school’ around Luc Tuymans, Bert De Beul and Van Bossche, sometimes also called the ‘Grey school’, works with thin layers of paint and subdued colours. Fascinated by the historical and psychological context determining the eye of the viewer, Van Bossche usually starts from photographs from newspapers or magazines, which he pares down and subtly manipulates. The painting is not a copy of reality, but a reinterpretation of it, both rational and emotional, resulting in a differentiated image that uncovers themes of loss of identity, powerlessness and mental cruelty.
