BARBÉ, Penitentenstraat 29, 9000 Gent 21/09 - 20/10/2024 / Thu. - Sun. | 14.00 - 18.00
Vanderschoot 's love of material and color goes beyond the tactile. Soft, playful, naive, pastel textures become one with architectural, hard, cold metals. The artist is intrigued by the mechanism of things. By what is in, behind and beneath the beautiful sculpture. Scaffolding, fencing and inner workings mostly serve to conceal, support or function, but Vanderschoot brings them radically to the forefront. Two large, pinkish shells represent sensual fertility, love and femininity. Prized for their beauty and magical powers for centuries, shells have served as money, amulets, utensils and ornaments. A whole world is conjured up with one image. Incorporated into this seemingly complex structure become blowing hands. As if by the right action they can open and close. As if something will appear or disappear or suddenly a great shell applause can erupt. The artist creates enchanting illusions by fully integrating hanging systems and pedestals into the sculpture. The illusion of movement, of feather light and leaden, of feminine and masculine, of organic forms and clean lines brings an intense tension and aesthetic dynamism that has a deeper intention besides beauty. Vanderschoot grants a glimpse behind the scenery of life. She not only shows the beautifully lit and polished stage. She also seeks out the wings. The chosen materials and techniques refer both to their underlying emotional world and to the procedure of sense deception, like a deus ex machina of the blind spot. Shells, playing cards, a beard, a waffle and cereal boxes: for Vanderschoot, inspiration can be found everywhere. By playing with scale, de-contextualizing identifiable objects and using attractive colors, her imagery is indebted to the dream world of Surrealism and the cartoonish directness of Pop art. Hyper-aware, she analyzes the avalanche of images that pass by daily through advertising, social media and art history. Thematically, there is the same alertness as during Popart for consumerism and mass media but Vanderschoot goes further and challenges collective memory. A club evokes antiquity and a beard the philosopher. Are they the authentic attributes of primeval man and sage, or rather of the Flintstones and Playmobil? With humor and an insidious playfulness and naiveté, the archetype, myth and symbolic value of an image is explored. Once the train of references has departed, one image evokes a whole universe. A large blue waffle catapults directly to fairs and tourist attractions. At the same time, the national specialty carries waffle iron politics, the proverbial "keep your waffle" and Belgian surrealism or linguistic Belgicism. The woven waffle boxes are also beautiful to look at. Vanderschoot sees how certain shapes keep returning, evolving organically from object over symbol to archetypes or mythical figures.
(Femke Vandenbosch 2023
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