ROOM ABSTRACTION

He was born in Ghent and studied at the Rijksnormaalschool there under Octave Landuyt. In 1962 he was awarded the Belgian Young Painter Prize and in 1963 the Godecharle Foundation Prize. Always attentive to the Flemish tradition, his work exists between figurative and abstract: landscapes, still lifes and portraits. In 1984 the artist represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale. From 1995 onwards, he collaborated with the German gallery Hachmeister, and attended important international fairs (Cologne, Basel). Dierickx was a guest lecturer at the Kanazawa School of Art (Japan) and a member of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten. From the 1970s until his retirement in 1999, he taught at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Gent (Wim Delvoye, Yves Beaumont, Marc Maet and Philipp Vandenberg were his students). In 1985 he exhibited at the International Cultural Centre in Antwerp and in 1988 at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent), as well as at the Hachmeister, Lelong and Arteba galleries (Zurich), and the Roberto Polo Gallery (Brussels). Ergo Pers published Leonard Nolens’ Negen schlaploze gedichten (Nine Sleepless Poems) with five etchings by Dierickx in 2006, and Giotto’s himel (Giotto’sSky) in 2012, a book of poems by Stefan Hertmans with engravings done by the artist. In 2014 after his death, a tribute exhibition was organised at the Roger Raveel Museum (Mechelen). His work can be found at the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Brussels), the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent) and the LWL (Münster).

He was born in Ghent and studied at the Rijksnormaalschool there under Octave Landuyt. In 1962 he was awarded the Belgian Young Painter Prize and in 1963 the Godecharle Foundation Prize. Always attentive to the Flemish tradition, his work exists between figurative and abstract: landscapes, still lifes and portraits. In 1984 the artist represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale. From 1995 onwards, he collaborated with the German gallery Hachmeister, and attended important international fairs (Cologne, Basel). Dierickx was a guest lecturer at the Kanazawa School of Art (Japan) and a member of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten. From the 1970s until his retirement in 1999, he taught at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Gent (Wim Delvoye, Yves Beaumont, Marc Maet and Philipp Vandenberg were his students). In 1985 he exhibited at the International Cultural Centre in Antwerp and in 1988 at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent), as well as at the Hachmeister, Lelong and Arteba galleries (Zurich), and the Roberto Polo Gallery (Brussels). Ergo Pers published Leonard Nolens’ Negen schlaploze gedichten (Nine Sleepless Poems) with five etchings by Dierickx in 2006, and Giotto’s himel (Giotto’sSky) in 2012, a book of poems by Stefan Hertmans with engravings done by the artist. In 2014 after his death, a tribute exhibition was organised at the Roger Raveel Museum (Mechelen). His work can be found at the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Brussels), the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent) and the LWL (Münster).

Born in Genk (Belgium). His work has a marked autobiographical character. Born in Belgium to Ukrainian parents, he experiences the paradox of being a Belgian with a Ukrainian surname, an identity crisis that has caused him a cultural conflict. These experiences have led him to the creation of a parallel world. Through therapy and work with the subconscious, he managed to access his “Void”: the loss of identity transformed into the “Sublime Void”, a place where a staging of identity, history and fantasy could take place. His paintings create that parallel world, in which he can assume the role he wants and the way he wants, change his identity, gender or age, represent situations from the past, remake them and create new ones. The search for identity is over; his “Sublime Void” is his identity. Art is a private ritual to bridge personal and cultural duality. The ancient wisdom of alchemy thus constitutes his guiding principle in the art. His search for his identity and his place as a human being takes the form of a complex total art project, of a personal mythology; alchemical terms such as separatio and coniunctio (separation and union of elements to reach a fundamental entity) are translated conceptually and expressively by the artist in texts, drawings and spatial installations. In addition to many group shows since 1972 (Belgium, Germany, Russia, Poland, USA…), since 1979 he has held numerous solo shows in Belgian and Dutch galleries and cultural centers, and has carried out four art projects in public spaces between 1993

Born in New Haven, Connecticut (USA). After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, he studied philosophy at Princeton University. He became friends with the artist Frank Stella, interested like him in minimalist abstraction. In 1964 it was included in the historic exhibition Post-Painterly Abstraction (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and in 1965 in Responsive Eye (MoMA). That same year he held one of his first solo shows at the Tibor de Nagy gallery (New York). In 1968 he received a Guggenheim scholarship. Ascribed to the Color Field, it evolved from the simplicity of its beginnings, a single band painted around a field of color, to somewhat more complex geometric shapes. As a critic and commentator, he writes for publications such as Art in America and Art International. In 1989 he became head of the Art Department at the University of Miami. In the last stage of his life, interest in his work was renewed. The Berry Campbell Gallery (New York) holds exhibitions that review and vindicate his career. The year of his death his work was presented in the exhibition Painting After Postmodernism. Belgium-USA, curated by Barbara Rose, at the Vanderborght (Brussels), Episcopal Palace (Málaga) and the Reggia di Caserta. There is his work in the MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim, Center Center national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou (Paris) and National Gallery of Victoria (Australia).