My story began some time ago in London. In museums, I was amazed at what art evoked inside me. Powerfully pronounced abstract art made me ponder between two worlds, realism and surrealism.
When Covid broke out and hit my industry hard, I sat at home for a year and a half. Sitting still, however, was not something I was good at. I wanted to find a way to experience and express my creativity. I began experimenting with acrylic paint. From the first encounter, it gave me a certain satisfaction. I could create something beyond reality, something that didn’t just exist in my head. Giving shape gave me a certain freedom. And at the same time I noticed that it also brought about certain limitations. That opposite to the dream image, reality also has limits. I also see this tension between freedom and limitations in the world around me. You have a great deal of freedom but there are also laws and limitations, just as there are in chemistry, biology and physics. Dealing with that field of tension is present both in life and in my paintings.
During the pandemic, I also experienced some difficult moments. I mostly stared at a piece of art, given to me by my grandmother, where thick patterned acrylic paints were used. It gave me peace, but also brought about a certain frustration at the same time. I kept returning to this painting. While the world stood still, nature still changed all around me. That’s how I came up with the idea of moving into nature. Not by completely copying my garden, but to transform the aspect of nature into an image, feeling or place inside the house. What was taking place outside I wanted to let in as a feeling.
I started with some small works. The circular pieces in the beginning represented a tree to me. In these pieces I brought together all the colors that visualised this for me. During a sollitary autumn walk, I walked many times around such an expressive tree. It had stripped itself from its leaves so beautifully. With its many colored leafs all around it in the form of a circle. It was a beautiful experience that I wanted to elaborate on. For me it had to be more than just putting an image from outside on a canvas. I wanted to incorporate certain techniques that I control and that create texture. In the translation to the canvas, I found a way to use those textures to find freedom and deal with limitations. Working with textures also brings an added dimension for me. It allows multiple interpretations and brings multiple feelings. It evokes more.
One day I was dragging logs. A mondain pastime that made me experience bark in a different way, as something vulnerable but also hard and protective. That bark in my hands formed a beautiful pattern and spoke to me, as did the structure I discovered in it. Multiple layers, multiple meanings. Something that protects a tree, but can also be very fragile. How you can support others, how you can be touched by others. This idea was a reflection of human life. Where so many beautiful fruits come from, but also very fragile moments can happen. It translates into that bark, what can be visibly present in a person, but just as hard not visible. And I translated that to my cortex works.
Additionally, the seasons give me many impulses which often influence me in my color palette. For example, on a dark day I often switch to dark works. It is a confluence of emotions, seasons, events. But those days don’t have to feel purely dark, they can also bring peace and coziness for me in winter. Or they remind me of hard techno with its dark setting, a world in which I also feel good. And so colors can evoke different feelings, atmospheres and with textures I reinforce this even more. This allows nuance and one’s own interpretation. Not everything has to be captured in one feeling, image or opinion.
Thus, I’d like to take you on an adventure and draw you into the feelings my works evoke in you. So that it may make you go out, dream, drift away. So that it may cheer you up or support you in your own experience, relationship and situation.
I want to thank the people who have already supported me and hope to reach and touch as many people as possible through my artworks.
Francis
© Francis Leenaerts, 2024