New bronzes from the Renaissance (2012)
MIXED TECHNIQUE
In 2006, De Lepeleire exhibited a series of works entitled Bronzes from the Renaissance, copies in India ink of black-and-white reproductions of bronze sculptures. In a new series, to which this room joins, he drew inspiration for four-by-three-meter watercolors from small-format Renaissance statues. Such figurines used to allow for more experimentation and appeal to other collectors than was possible with large bronze or marble sculptures. Beyond the memory of Picasso, who sought the essence of a bull in a series of drawings, the watercolor copies a work by Giambologna (1529-1608). His mannerism - classical subjects were captured with restrained tension rather than modeled after an ideal of beauty based on purity and balance - is also recognizable in the figures on the ground. Both these “pop-ups” and the mosaic form of the watercolor, in which the diluted ink is applied in several layers, are a nod to the artist's own practice. Like Renaissance artists, De Lepeleire is guided by the past to arrive at new work.