<The Shaping of the Landscape> Joost Colpaert

The shaping of the landscape is a pleasure of painting. The landscape is actually the result of the interaction between man and nature, both in its physical appearance and in its perception and reflection; we give it shape in our imagination. The recent series of paintings and works on polyester film are a quest to the relationship between abstraction and figuration. A concept where all kind of places are shown, figured out and combined. The windows opened by Henry Matisse were a glimpse into the future of art : clear lines, shapes and colors. This clarity in the use of form and color is also increasingly evident in my latest works. In fact, our landscapes are largely made up of forms that are determined by property and take shape in a land register. This creates a confrontation with the original nature, a river that cuts through everything : a tension between curved and straight lines, between nature and ratio. The landscapes are an incentive to harmonious compositions in which the artist combines monochrome surfaces with the pure loop of a river. Monochrome surfaces with a background caused by the reaction of water and oil give a depth, a kind of root from which nature comes to the surface; chaos as an undertone for human reasoning. The composition and color form the music of the painting. "Man became an artist the moment he accepted that nature becomes an object of contemplation and imagination." (Raffaele Milani, Esthétique du paysage, 2005)