Veerle De Smet (°1972)
“A life is not linear. Human growth is organic and unpredictable. Through evolution and time, we see that everything is ephemeral and that both processes and spaces evolve along with it and acquire different meanings. In this way, a shifting relationship is established between the individual, space, and time. An alienation and disruption of the human being arises in his relationship to life. This disruption triggers and forms the basis for the creation of my visual work. In this way, I investigate the connection between man and his inner nature and seek how to capture that disruption visually. More as an observer than as a moralist. My visual work is an experience that, from my own essence, seeks a connection with the other,” says Veerle De Smet.
These ‘snapshots of life’ were initially given form through painting. Later, the more direct medium of photography was employed for this purpose, before switching to sculpture. While painting, the artist wanted to feel the energy arising from that disturbance and, in doing so, intuitively experience the undercurrent and the reality within the reality created by us. From this direct expression, Veerle De Smet wished to restore the disturbed balance in color and form. By making the unconscious conscious and making the form universal as a primal form, she absorbs this energy—her anchor—into herself and creates a disturbance versus balance within the painting. It is the translation of visualizing a reality beneath reality. The paintings she continues to use as a medium to this day are always related to her sculpture.
To work even deeper into that disruption, there was a need for sturdier and more solid material. Literally speaking, energy that is visualized in the matter. Polyester has the ideal property to create smooth and polished forms. Someone put it beautifully: “Her biomorphic figures are characteristic. Protrusions are truncated without cutting off the life force. Sometimes the force seems to be rendered deaf-mute, and the rhythm of the inner forces is locked up in a polyester membrane.”
Polyester sculptures thrive easily in open outdoor spaces, thus bringing about a temporary change in an environment. In this way, De Smet aims to evoke a sense of alienation in the everyday domain. Through this addition, the viewer receives a different image of the surroundings and, in other words, a different impression of their familiar environment.
Stability depends on proximity and is therefore vulnerable. When there is a disturbance, this form will continue into another. However, this creates a new irregularity, in which the environment reacts to the form and vice versa. The artist likes to leave the viewer the freedom to interpret that experience themselves.
Let us take, for example, the polyester sculpture *Kan Niet Zwemmen* (Cannot Swim). We see an orange fish with skin-colored women's legs. A disruption of the genetic material, alias genetic deformation. Every change influences our evolution: where are we evolving towards?
XXY presents a hermaphrodite, or a genderless being, that emerges from a female figure. These high-pink polyester creatures are placed in water as floating figures. That water is something organic, but environmental pollution causes disturbances once again.
Example three is the polyester sculpture *Chicken* as a symbol of inexhaustible fertility, as a mass-produced item. The chicken in the battery cage, also known as the food-producing machine versus the disposable product. The chicken as a reflection of the insatiable human. An addressing of the manipulation of nature for the benefit of man.
In Veerle's oeuvre, polyester has branched out into installations over the past ten years or so, with video as an additional component. This is how the work *Homeless* came into being, as an ode to the homeless who, thanks to their freedom, possess so-called space. A bathtub as an addition to the open space.
Specifically, the polyester bath is filled with smoke. We are shown a film of a naked man projected onto it in a loop as a symbolic sign for daring to take one's place. The same applies to the installation *In Between*, which consists of an iron bed frame onto which an abandoned body is projected. Because the head has been omitted, the identity remains undefined. The abandoned body reflects the abandonment, the fact that people no longer ‘recognize’ each other due to alienation and disruption of oneself. There are no longer any points of connection with oneself or with the other.
The same happens with the installation *Time select me/just be*, specifically a metal locker where workers hang their clothes during the work shift. The locker represents the place of the individual in society and their desire to belong. Wax and bronze forms hang inside the locker.
The same thing happens with the installation Time select me/just be, specifically a metal locker where workers hang their clothes during their shift. The locker represents the individual's place in society and their desire to belong. Wax and bronze forms hang inside the locker. The long silhouettes represent the soul. After all, in that attempt to belong, individuals lose their mobile, supple forms and assume a fixed, ‘rusted’ shape. Humanity is trapped in time and space.
A dented aluminum canteen, called a 'pulle', represents the acceptance of one's fate. In front of the locker hangs a battered figure with a rope around its neck, balancing on a point having lost its roots…
Nowadays, artist Veerle De Smet further develops her practice through ceramics. Where she previously created smooth forms in polyester, thus representing the essence of energy in shape, she now uses clay as a counterweight. Clay gives her the opportunity to represent the immediacy of the form and to emphasize imperfection. The power lies in the organic sensibility and the lived experience of material that intuitively takes on its own form. By switching from the smooth, plastered form initially seen in polyester to the rough clay form with wounded skin and vulnerability, she aims to let the form transform into its core. In its unadorned state.
Through the natural materiality of clay and the authenticity of the material, as well as the return to the core and the new method of form exploration, the unpredictable is challenged anew. The organic forms may appear sunken or failed. Veerle labels this ‘lived experience’. In doing so, she comes yet another step closer to the human being and his inner nature.
A project in progress, Interact, is envisioned as a ceramic soundbox from which animal sounds resonate. The buzzing of bees, representing the connectedness within a group, and the sounds of elephants, which produce a primal scream and sounds of pain, cut through to the bone. A reminder of the human being who, centuries ago, could only communicate through sounds and was dependent on his natural environment. Disturbances caused by the influences of climate, consumption, and performance create imbalance and communication breakdowns. The installation Interact represents the relationship between man and nature, but also the rediscovery of the balance between man and his own inner nature. In other words: free to be.
Hilde Van Canneyt, Spring 16.