Maurice Sculpture, 2024. 50,5 × 128 × 127,5 cm. Polyester, polyamide, aluminum, coating

Multidisciplinary visual artist Hans Op de Beeck has created several life-size sculptures of figures in recent years, including quite a few of children. Typically, these monochrome grey figures appear in a serene moment of play, silence, rest, concentration or sleep. With 'Maurice', and several other new child characters, Op de Beeck introduces a new, playful element, namely that of dressing up with costumes and props.
The boy, Maurice, is only half dressed, suggesting that he is in the domestic context, for example just before bedtime or early in the morning, before or after he wore his daily clothes. The seventeenth century collar and shoes and the saber suggest a game in which he imagines himself to be a historical character, with the saber at the ready and the great concentration on his face. Dressing up, playing with found or home-made clothes, outsized parental clothing, fancy dress costumes and props, is an age-old and universal part of being a child.