Alexander-Charles Gyselinckx (born Antwerp, 1949) is a writer, painter and
photographer living and working in Antwerp.
Fascinated by time, and the difference time makes to the times, he is enthralled
by the observable outward, subtle shifts in the everyday decorum of life and the
behaviour of people influenced by trends, fashions, fashionable language and all
sorts of contemporary exotic effects – out of which a mutation is distilled
that, you may think, ensures the old is gradually being replaced. But according
to Gyselinckx exactly the opposite holds true. In 1977 while he happened to be
listening to the music of Erik Satie, sublimely performed by Reinbert de Leeuw,
he realized that something was on the way back. It was all to do with time
arising from time at the time. Since then it has been a long and arduous quest
for a certain existential balance.
Alex Gyselinckx,
coquelicot fané 98
In the 70’s and 80’s, when on numerous occasions he repainted well-known
impressionist works of art, observers thought he was merely creating
reproductions. Nothing was further from the truth – for him it meant an
empathy with the era, a conversation with an artist from time gone by, a
dialogue with the time, a complete immersion in another dimension through the métier
of classic painting and the fleeting, poetic nature of impressionism. In other
words, for Gyselinckx it was like time travelling. And that was how he arrived
at his own contemporary conceptual imagery, which would be rendered in small,
spliced formats and fragments, through which - by means of collages,
photographs, drawings and paintings - he referenced today and yesterday as well
as the right atmospheric sensation. And yet other parts referred to the place
which he draws from, creating his personal iconography. During these exhibitions
in the 80’s and 90’s numerous references were also made to the literary
canon of Marcel Proust, in particular his À la recherche du temps perdu (In
Search of Lost Time/Remembrance of Things Past), which in those days was far
removed from our everyday lives. Today, some 30 years later, it is all-pervading
through any given cultural radio or television programme.
Time remains a constant in his work, and the way in which he relates to it today
is expressed in both the figurative as well as the original conceptual form –
through drawing, photography, painting and texts, or any other form of visual
art. We are witnessing a gradual simplification of the poetic and pictorial
elements in his work, culminating in a complete economy of image and form, but
always retaining the two basic elements of Time and Place.
Time was also confronted in the form of a short film, ALLEGORIE (Allegory) by
the Peruvian director Elsa Cayo. They met each other in 1992 during a private
viewing at an Antwerp art gallery, where she suggested he interpret the leading
role of the 17th century painter Philippe de Champaigne, friend of Nicolas
Poussin, in her latest production. The story takes place in the future, with a
meeting from the past. The film was shot in a chateau in Bourgogne, and dealt
with a painting by Nicolas Poussin. It premiered in Montmartre in Paris and was
shown in the auditorium in the Louvre on 31 October 1994.
As a heraldist, he is also mentioned in the works of Jean-François Houtart as
one of our Belgian Heraldische Tekenaars (designing and drafting coats of arms
on assignment for the Heraldisch College – the college of heraldry).
FLORILEGIUM HERALDICAE BELGICAE Brussel 2004 Dictionnaire Des Artistes Héraldistes
Belges du xxe Siècle.
On pg.132 Alexander-Charles Gyselinckx né à Anvers en 1949. Oevre : armoiries
familiales pour le Vlaams Heraldisch College.
See a film clip of inspiring renoir's art paintings, masterpieces of French
impressionism.
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Alexandre’s plastic art sweeps us along, with its magical palette composed
of elements borrowed from music, poetry and graphic art, into a mystical world
where, by grace of a creative spark, events are relived and characters
reawakened from the past, from whence unsettling cries emanate.
The various paintings are among the many facets that establish this diaphanous
connection, this osmosis between the past, present and future, through which the
artist, overhanging the universe of thought and sensibility, leads us
sure-footedly into a dream world of lyrical poetry. This miracle is achieved,
however, with an economy of technical means – such as sober colours, poetic
texts, musical scores and goose feathers – and the artist’s mastery is
displayed in his positioning of these disparate elements, often inert in
isolation, to generate this mystery upon integration.
He bring us into close contact with the poetry, the sensibility, the search for
what is beautiful and the deep aspirations of the eternal human spirit
throughout the ages, projecting these into our noisy era and presenting them to
us as a message of internal peace and calm in order to reconcile us with
harmony.
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