BRUSSELS.- In his work, Helmut Stallaerts focuses on ‘images’ that are imposed on him from his subconscious.

His painting process is characterized by a slow progression. The images, which are usually stored in a kind of intermediate space, are released. They are interpreted, nuanced, and ultimately appropriated. In this process, the painter, like his protagonists, works like a pendulum that moves non-stop between various realities, without limitation, in what is present or long past. Thus, a very personal, but possibly also a transgenerational collective story is evoked.

The meticulous process of painting and repainting enables the artist to transform. The canvas, paper, bone, and tree bark each embody the skeleton that, through the image, is provided with a permeable skin through many, almost endless layers.

In Oracular Trips, questions are answered with a question, a representation in which absolute certainties are absent. These may only be found in the powerful resonance, allowing each observer to step into the image.

Helmut Stallaerts was born in 1982 in Brussels (BE), where he lives and works. He graduated in painting from the Académie Saint-Luc in Brussels and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Düsseldorf, with Helmut Federle. Solo exhibitions include ‘Meta Ages’ and ‘Al Diwân’, Parliament Gallery, Paris (FR), ‘Dissolve into a red dwarf’, Island, Brussels (BE) and ‘Ignoramus’, Bernier/Eliades, Athens (GR). His work has also been featured in ‘Catastrophe and the Power of Art’ at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, JP, ‘Un monde intranquille’, Abbaye Saint-André Centre d’art contemporain, Meymac, FR, ‘Museum to Scale 1/7’, The Baker Museum, Florida, USA, Museum Dhondt- D’haenens, Deurle, BE. Helmut Stallaerts was awarded the Young Belgian Art Prize in 2013.