Robert Devriendt plays his scores in successive installations which he deploys, as a connoisseur of the cause, on white walls capable of giving them meanings sometimes a hundred miles from those the painter had thought of while painting.
Paintings and poems with nature as a filigree
Most generally, a generic theme brings them together under the same poster: Lonely party in this case at Baronian. And The Missing Scriptwhich means both saying everything and saying nothing! Devriendt paints the mystery enclosed in each setting and he indulges in it with the joy of the discoverer of fantasies or imbroglios. Each time, he builds a little theater that plays leapfrog with the reality(s) of a scenario that crosses his mind.
Let us take as examples some of the sequences orchestrated for this fireworks display which concludes 51 years of activities of a gallery owner – Albert Baronian – who will have displayed his bump of ingenuity in exhibition around and in Brussels but also around the world , his passion for the arts (he has others of his own) having been revealed early on, even while he was perfecting his social and political studies at the University of Louvain. Here are these few examples: a woman kneeling with a deer horn next to a dead tree with more or less parallel shapes, but very different colors; a female face in profile, a light on the neck, a shoe in a landscape lit in yellow, pink, a car with all its lights on on a country road; a woman from the front while behind her stands a forest of fir trees in the mist, the woman holding a basin filled with smoking incense; a young woman under a biker helmet, while a man stands with dead wood in his arms near a wanly lit road, a broken beer bottle hanging from a flamboyant pink jacket. That’s enough. This is, approximately, the atmosphere of Devriendt’s tableautins.
Some 35 paintings, lined up together or separately, cut out the welcoming walls of a gallery which has seen others and knows how difficult it can be to bring to life such an apparently disparate exhibition. We were present while Robert Devriendt began to shape, not a speech but a series of images responsible for responding to one another, at the very least creating complicity, games of ping-pong between them. Smiling, the artist agreed that sunny and calm, this day off proved favorable for ordering his paintings in the serenity of a time when nothing was in a hurry.
The wave of blood that threatens our Paradise
“The difficultyhe told us, it’s the installation of the pieces together, because the gallery is not the workshop! The arrangement of colors and shapes is a struggle, an imperative necessity that must be taken into account! I think it’s been twenty years since I exhibited with Baronian and the challenge of adjusting the pieces comes up every time. It’s a challenge!”
“My studio is in Bruges, but I live in the countryside and it’s an opportunity. From time to time I have to put down the brushes, the painting acting on me, in me, like an obsession. It’s a passion irreducible to slogans, to submissions And I paint in oil for the depth it brings. With oil, the colors are more real.
Watteau but not only
“I work on the same theme – The Missing Sketches – with the same subtitle – Lonely party. Indeed, I always have a strong connection with nature and, at one point, I wanted to paint a celebration, a Party, in nature. I saw Gallant parties painted by Watteau. But, with me, it came simply. Otherwise. This was orchestrated around details that could be linked to a party. And, why not, a drama. The sensual side of situations is very important to me. It has a cinematic side, with fragments. As a result, we are never sure of what we see. Hence, when faced with my paintings, a different understanding for me and for you, all the others, for each one in particular. Especially since words and images do not have the same meaning! It could even represent fragments of a television series, but also fragments of Western painting, which I have studied a lot. I walked a lot in the woods and what is believed to be a forest. It had an effect on my eye, on my perception of things, on what, in a forest, is natural or not. For example, a car, broken glass. I paint an idea, but also a climate. I’m not painting a romantic party, but a solitary party.”
Take it for granted: in each Robert Devriendt installation, each painting is more or less linked to the one that precedes or follows it, without any logic being its leaven. And sometimes, a single painting plays the score alone, who knows why: like this painting of a crying eagle. In his painting, there are rituals, very important, yet so simple. And a violent side. But, know this: Devriendt’s paintings are jewels that have been carefully refined, crafted to the extreme of his strength. Of his conscience. With, in the end, what we see and, perhaps also, what we do not see. Finally, you should know: this teller of compelling visual stories is also the author of two novels published in Dutch.
Baronian leaves, not quite
Albert Baronian seemed indestructible. Ready to face all the events of a life which, as we become more aware as we get older, is not always a joke. And now, for various reasons of his own, he has decided to put the key under the doormat this very next December 31. “After 51 years of gallery work, perhaps it was time to put an end to a gallery that requires you at all times. But I will remain present here and there. I will work at police stations if the opportunity arises, without being required to be on call, on a daily basis. Here, for example, for the Brussels Fair in Antwerp, the Belgian Gallery offered to invest its stand in the language of flowers and silent things. Why not ! Likewise, the Ceysson&Bénetière Gallery, in Walraff, Luxembourg, asked me for a Retrospective of Olivier Mosset. Why not again! And I am already nominated for the Galeries Federation Prize in Basel. I’m leaving peacefully, with no regrets.”
Let us remember, however, that by exhibiting Arte Povera (1960-1975) in Brussels (Paolini, Kounellis, Alighiero Boetti, Mario Merz Luciano Fabro, Alberto Burri, Gilberto Zorio), Albert Baronian moved the lines, breathed new life into new to us and he stuck to it afterwards. He also focused on Surface Support. It’s not nothing! Baronian is also leaving, aware that times are changing too quickly, that the art market and money have taken over the history of art! “After 68, something was happening and collectors were buying for the love of art. We were taking part in a story! Of course, it’s very nostalgic, even corny to talk like this, but when I see how our society is evolving, I prefer to turn the page.” We can say in happy conclusion that Albert Baronian deserved art. And thanks to him.
