In his second solo with the gallery, Tom Liekens shows an ensemble of recent works which narratively and visually explore the contemporary dynamics of the animal kingdom, human nature included.
Through a reunion of emblematic works out of four different series, the Antwerp-based visual artist further investigates recurring imagery from the history of Western art and folk culture. Barbizon and Once Upon a Time in the Forest celebrate the underwood as a cradle of twenty-first century fairy tales, a source of both magic and fear, while Pleasures of the Fur deep dives into the pantheon of Greek mythology to insufflate creative counterpoints into the deciphering kaleidoscope of modern-day social behavior. The full body portraits form Liekens's homage to the vanitas genre, a collection of human isolations tainted with pride and fragility.
Titled Dog Years, the last series was born during the COVID lockdowns, and reappropriates the German shepherd as a zoomorphic pilgrim roaming a world of chaos and order. Together, these small and large scale black and white collages of woodcuts & monotypes build a unique vision of humanity, constantly testing its breaking point, while its habitat show signs of an ever so vibrant will to survive, as exhibited in the two large colorful oils on canvas.
Liekens is a rare visual fabulist, who like Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695), takes the human condition apart without compromise or judgement. During the opening, the writer and poet Max Temmerman will introduce the artist's corpus, giving word to all its wild beauties and sublime dangers.
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