Hans Op de Beeck

Artiste, né en 1969, vit et travaille à Bruxelles.

Drawing is such a wonderfully direct tool: there are no practical obstacles or issues to overcome. In my film work and my large-scale sculptural installations often so many people and resources are involved that it’s an entirely different, almost opposite dynamic of creation.

Drawing for me has nothing to do with fear. I associate it with soothing solitude, tranquility and serenity. Drawing is a homecoming. When I create my black-and-white watercolours there is only the night, the silence, the stretched paper, the tubes of black pigment, the water, two brushes and a pencil.

Although I do use some photographic material as a documentation source, the finality of my drawings is pure, constructed fiction. A nocturnal filmic mood, an abandoned transit area, a strange building, a group of waiting people, a woman staring into nothingness… so far I have explored a lot of themes and subjects in my large drawings. The only things that haven’t appeared in my drawing so far have been violent or pornographic images. I guess they have been missing because I like to tell my visual stories in a discrete way, subtly hidden between the lines of the image.