Fik Van Gestel
(Turnhout,
1951 )
Fik van Gestel’s oeuvre is an ode to unpretentious painting. As an artist, he strives for ‘pictorial fireworks’: no more, no less. Making his way in the visual arts in the latter days of Conceptual Art, Van Gestel was one of the advocates of a new approach to painting in the 1980s. Yet his colourful, almost Expressionist touch sets him apart from the ‘Grey School’, which included Luc Tuymans, Bert De Beul and Guy Van Bossche. Van Gestel taught at the Academy of Sint-Lukas in Brussels from 1985 to 2012. He lives and works in Gierle. The title of his 2014 solo exhibition at De Warande in Turnhout was Storm & Stilte.
