In a 2020 interview, young Belgian painter Bendt Eyckermans said ‘my paintings are no great enigmas’. But this show of sombre images, full of symbols to decode and narratives to unravel, sure makes that seem like bs.
It’s the works’ very enigmatic-ness that’s appealing. The paintings are full of camcorders and Polaroid cameras. Clothes are discarded on a sofa, statues are casting dramatic shadows in dark rooms, two women embrace while cradling model hearts in their hands. A woman’s legs rest on a blanket on the floor while a video camera points at some unseen action out of frame. Men’s hands hold those camcorders, but they remain largely faceless. What are we seeing? The filming of some erotic love story? Porn? Whatever it is, all we’re witnessing is the witnessing itself, we’re seeing the documentation, not the event. We’re voyeurs of the voyeurs.
In the next room, a woman from an earlier work is now wrapped in a heavy shawl. Another camera on a tripod is reflected obliquely in a blue vase behind her. The event has happened, this is its aftermath. A small model heart is wrapped in rope and left on the ground. Smaller works show a man chiselling stone and stills from movie studios idents.
Eyckermans is inviting you into this dark, complex world of watching and making, of films and cinema and sensuality and emotional tenderness, of the gaze and where it’s aimed. These are tense portrayals of what’s seen and unseen, said and unsaid. They’re beautiful paintings; uncomfortable, disconcerting and very enigmatic.
