The Quiet View Sculptural Installation, 2015. Mixed media, 2100 × 660 × 1020 cm.

‘The Quiet View’ is a permanent installation that leads you down a long corridor to an observation room with a large window. From there you can gaze out over a landscape sculpted to scale.

Following the installation of ‘Location (5)’ in the Towada Art Center in Japan, this is Op de Beeck’s second monumental perception-oriented artwork to be given a permanent home.
The remarkable sense of depth in this fifteen-metre-long sculpted landscape is a trompe l’oeil, achieved by the cunning manipulation of perspective. Mirrors on either side of the daylit landscape create an optical illusion of endless breadth and depth.

We’re offered a prospect of what appears to be a large lake, with rocky islands, bare trees and subtle traces of human activity. It’s a cross between a flooded Arizona landscape and the devastated countryside around Ypres in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The work thus encompasses both the splendour of nature at its most sublime and its destruction by man.