Rinus Van de Velde | Galerie Max Hetzler | 17.01.-22.02.2025

In a practice spanning drawing, installation, sculpture and video work, Rinus Van de Velde creates a fictional autobiography, drawing on imagined memories of a life never lived. In his pictorial world, the possibilities of reality have no limits. Due to their unusually large format, Van de Velde’s drawings are reminiscent of paintings, giving the medium an autonomous character. While he initially worked exclusively with charcoal on paper, in recent years the artist began to introduce colour to his works, creating larger oil pastels, alongside small pencil drawings. In the works on paper, handwritten texts can be found underneath the pictures, testifying to fears, wishes and longings, among other things. The words anchor the drawings in a larger narrative and determine their place within it. The video works and sculptures, which are often props for the artist’s films or depict scenes in miniature, are also part of this construct. Here the textual element can be found again in the extensive titles.

In addition to Van de Velde’s latest video work, the current exhibition also presents new charcoal and oil pastel drawings as well as sculptures, thus uniting the various aspects of the artist’s oeuvre. References to the theme of plein air and its proponents, including Claude Monet and David Hockney, can be found throughout. Despite this connection, the individual works are self-contained and tell an independent story. In his works, Van de Velde engages in a friendly, imaginary dialogue with bygone artists, seeking to continue their oeuvre by recontextualising it. This is particularly evident in his oil pastel drawings, which often depict vast landscapes or still lifes. Contrary to the artist’s fantasy of being an open-air artist himself, all of his works are created in his studio, opening up another level of fiction.

The video work A Life in a Day, 2021–2023, shows Van de Velde’s alter ego, represented by his studio assistant, who wears a mask of the artist’s face. The protagonist goes about his daily routine, carrying a suitcase that holds his thoughts, ideas and visualisations. After painting outdoors surrounded by a jungle landscape, he is seen descending through a swimming pool – in an allusion to Hockney – and into an underground archive. This place represents Van de Velde’s mind, turning the scene into an intimate self-portrait. In the charcoal drawing Claude, I said, you have to listen, …, 2024, Monet is depicted walking across a bridge in his garden in Giverny. With the intensive use of light and shadow and the dialogue from the accompanying text, the work is reminiscent of a still from a film. The oil pastel drawing entitled Dear Alexej, I don’t have a studio…, 2024, shows a sunset over a vast sea. In his role as an imaginary open-air painter, the artist enters into a dialogue with Alexej von Jawlensky, informing him that he himself does not have a studio, but can be found every day in the place depicted.

In Van de Velde’s work, the dichotomies of truth and illusion, reality and imagination become blurred. The possible is combined with the impossible, opening up a multitude of realities to the viewer. The artist explains: ‘My work is always based on fiction, placed alongside reality. It is about the truth and a lie. Where is the real in all of it? And this is interesting I think, for me to mix it all up’.

Rinus Van de Velde (b. 1983, Leuven) lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have been held in international institutions including Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2024); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2023); BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (2022); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne; FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Nantes (both 2021); KWM artcentre, Beijing; Bærum Kulturhus, Sandvika (both 2019); Kunstpalais Erlangen (2018); Nest, The Hague (2017); Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague (2016); S.M.A.K, Ghent (2015, 2008); Kunsthalle São Paulo (2015); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Malaga (2013); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2012); Institut für zeitgenössische Kunst, Nürnberg (2010); and Lokaal 001, Antwerp (2008).

Van de Velde’s works are in the collections of A.Z. Artgestion Collection, Bilbao; Belfius Art Collection, Brussels; CAC Malaga; Colección SOLO, Madrid; Erasmus University Rotterdam; FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Nantes; Ghisla Art Collection, Locarno; Karel De Grote Hogeschool, Antwerp; Kunsthalle São Paulo; Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague; KPN Art Collection; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne; KWM artcenter, Beijing; M HKA, Antwerp; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; S.M.A.K., Ghent; and Stad Antwerpen, Antwerp, among others.