Jan Van Oost
(Deinze,
1961 )
Life, death, temptation and transience are the overriding themes of Jan Van Oost’s sculptures and installations. He expresses these themes through the use of both classical memento mori as well as other familiar objects. Mirrors, coffins, children’s heads, women’s bodies and skulls dominate the work of Van Oost. He often uses luxurious, durable materials such as marble, precious metals and crystal, but behind this opulent-looking façade, suffering and death are always present as ultimate testimonies of human existence. Although trained as a painter, Van Oost mainly works in three dimensions, fascinated as he is by the impact of spatiality and the structural and the emotionally charged relationships that can arise between a work and the environment in which it is located. From this contextual approach, living alternately in Ghent and Tuscany, he searches for a symbolic interpretation of the human condition
