Exposition 2011
Exhibition from 18 march to 9 april 2011
GALERIE DIDIER DEVILLEZ
53, rue Emmanuel Van Driessche
1050 Bruxelles (Belgique)
Tél/fax +32(0)2 215 82 05
Mobile +32(0)475 931 935
devillez@skynet.be
www.galeriedidierdevillez.be
Welcome to my site.....
Introduction:
Writing about Anne de Bodt's "works" in the plural is a misrepresentation. At best, one can accompany a given object in her work that is no more than a temporary expression. Such moments are not defined exclusively by chronology because her expression corresponds to the life of a woman and her long, patient headway in the fragile, unpredictable garden that her nature has revealed to her. The time for her work is what the Greeks call “Kairos”, couched in modest artistic gestures, continually reiterated but never repeated made with the simplest of materials – as if, here on earth, everything hangs on a string eternally knotted and untied.
Shreds of paper, often in strips, silk thread to tie them together and seal their borders, brightened with words drawn from ancient texts and poems or more explicit images of leaves or notes of music hanging from the score. The calligraphy originates in part from her imagination exclusively; in part it is inspired by Middle and Far Eastern characters and their landscapes of sand and rice paddies. And in part the origin is totally different, borrowed from a leaf or the transparency of the paper. The choice of colour would never please those who refuse joy and serenity: the pale blue of springtime, April yellow, tender greys, flower petal white. Her compositions have nothing for heroes and martyrs, without the shifting tones, and spectacular relief of expressionism, or the faith of constructivism despite their distant family relation.
These works are like paper beaches in the dunes. Sometimes they lead down to the water or up to the skies like a kite. There are rafts and cabins, but they are for everyday, household use, not major events. They could sit on a table, fit in a glass cube or hang from an invisible nylon thread to sway in the breeze.
Talking about Anne de Bodt's work meant accepting its spirit, refusing the temptation of the instant, choosing gentle concentration and the long term. It took a historian's approach to find the subtle trends, to spot them from a distance and move in closer to have a look – perhaps sit down to read, not a story embroidered in a tapestry, but Dante and Eckart, Maeterlinck and Green, Jung and Graf Durkheim. It meant being alone surrounded by certain poems, haikus, and basic texts like the “Secret of the golden flower” whose extracts light up a number of her pieces. It meant hearing sacred music from different cultures and different eras to get a glimpse of the garden where Anne de Bodt strolls, sits and speaks.
Finally, it meant going to have a look at her studio under the eaves, alongside an ancient oak and the birds it shelters. The book was constructed from the works themselves. They inferred certain blends and suggested a path on a spiritual trip but never made the mistake of seeking an obedient illustration in manual labour. Every chapter is a whole, like a Dream. Like the dreams depicted on rock walls and floors of caves by the Australian Aborigines who use them to indicate their presence in the world. Those Dreams are the golden thread connecting outer and inner, man and the universe. They are offered up like reflections mirroring the work.
Guy Gilsoul