Jan De Vliegher

Cinque Terre

01.07.2010 - 31.08.2010

Zeedijk 635 - Knokke
The series Cinque Terre was created after a visit in July 2009 to Cinque Terre, five villages in the rocky coastal area on the Riviera di Levante in Liguria, Italy. The villages there are clinging to vertiginous cliffs. The brightly colored houses have facades in yellow, orange, pink and red tones that contrast with the green of their shutters. The contrast of the pink and orange facades with the clear azure sky enhances the color perception. This game of complementary colors fascinated the artist.

The works of Jan De Vliegher have a realistic character and are located in the figurative field. The Vliegher does not adhere to the narrative or the anecdote, but is searching for universal situations. He is no history painter, he tells no stories, he does not engage in politics, has no message, unless one which is purely painterly. He should be regarded as an abstract painter, although he paints the reality on the basis of photographs.

From the countless photographic recordings he chooses a limited number of images that are carefully crafted with the computer. Composition, form, color and perspective are manipulated and modified in preparation of the painting. In his paintings, De Vliegher is looking for the magic moment where figuration ends and abstraction begins, that instant when the realistic illusion ends and the subject changes into paint.

Jan De Vliegher paints light. The light which reflects until it separates from the object and almost forms abstract compositions. What stands out again and again in his work is the joy of painting.

Jan De Vliegher (°1964) lives and works in Bruges. He studied painting at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (Ghent). In 1998 he debuted solo in the exhibition space of the Association for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent. In 2000 he won the Prize for Visual Arts of the Province of West Flanders.

De Vliegher participated in important exhibitions such as ‘Trapped Reality’ (Santa Monica – Barcelona, 1997), ‘The Gardens of Granada’ (PMKK Ostend, 2002), ‘Marines in Confrontation’ (Beaufort, PMMK, Ostend, 2003), ‘Fading’ (Museum of Ixelles, 2009) and ‘Schatzkammer’ (Gaasbeek Castle, 2011). Works by Jan De Vliegher were included in the collections of Dexia Brussels, Mercator Insurance Antwerp, the Flemish Parliament in Brussels and the Museum for Modern Art in Ostend.
Selection works