© Johan Van Oeckel

Johan Van Oeckel (born 1971, Herentals, BE) is a Belgian artist. His practice is in the tradition of non-objective art, but with an interesting twist. Whereas classical abstraction usually involves a reduction of reality, this artist does it the other way round: he takes a pure form and loads it with information.

He starts from nothingness, from the totally indeterminate, and builds up from there. By using colour and form as the ultimate signifiers, Johan Van Oeckel reaches for principles beyond the visible. His work navigates in a silent, universal space that seems timeless and can be found anywhere and nowhere. It touches on fundamental structures and laws that also apply in language, mathematics, music and even in nature. Ratio and emotion, order and chaos, standstill and agitation always and everywhere present themselves as threads. With his purified work, Johan Van Oeckel manages to find a meditative frequency that brings an oasis of cerebral calm to our overstimulated existence. Johan Van Oeckel has a Master of Fine Arts degree at Sint-Lukas Brussels.

Description

Untitled (In Touch), 2023, UV light on paper, 810 x 1135 mm

Untitled (In Touch) tries to develop a connection between artist and audience, atelier and public space, carrier and medium, and last but not least between the first and second ONBOARDS location. The carrier, wood-containing paper, will gather ‘information’ from the different locations through its medium: UV light. Light blocking from the artist’s stu- dio portait, from trees or lamp posts in its direct environment, will leave traces on the work. It acts as a natural silkscreen or a slowly developped photographic picture. The neverending work in progress is oscillating between representational and abstract, static and evolving, visible and invisible.

Represented by Alfa Gallery Miami, Alzueta Barcelona, Bernice Belgium, ArtStar NY

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