FELIX DECLERCQ
Name: Felix De Clercq
Age: 24
Birthplace: Antwerp, Belgium
Home: Antwerp, Belgium
Discipline: Painting
Sisters, 2021, oil on canvas, courtesy of Sofie Van de Velde Gallery
What is the starting point of your practice?
My artistic practice is born from a natural curiosity towards stories that I find whilst travelling or when I’m reading about history, biology, palaeontology, etc. To be more specific, I am inspired by elements such as the Iguanodon bones that have been found in a Belgian coal mine in the 19th century, immigrated tongue ferns which mostly grow in wells and cellar holes, the bronze statue of Mercury in the sales hall of Lyon which got stolen three times in the 20th century or the herb that beekeepers smoke to prevent them from being stung.
Which topics does your work focus on?
I’m interested in the dierent ways we can retell history, but I look at it from a more poetic - or fragile - point of view.
What do you want to say with your artistic language?
I see my practice as an extension of art history, using beauty to crystallize stories from world history within our contemporary culture, building on various media like figurative painting, ready-mades, mosaics, or textile works. I choose the medium or materials that fit the atmosphere of the work best.
How do you de!ne your artistic search and practice in three words?
Curiosity, beauty, sharing.
What is your artistic and personal commitment?
To keep my curiosity towards the world and its history. To share this through the medium of art, while developing myself both substantively and technically.
Bernissart, 2021, oil on canvas, courtesy of Sofie Van de Velde Gallery