Art & Culture at Ric's Boats
From the beginning Ric's Boats highlighted
the cultural and artistic aspects in our society.
Erik Pevernagie, chairman and visual artist, who held exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, New York, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Antwerp has exhibited at Ric's Art Boat several times,.
He invited Nicolas Vial, illustrator of "Le Monde", who exhibited his paintings and drawings at Ric's Art Boat.
Filmmakers Claude Lelouch and Atom Egoyan have held their conferences, Tom Barman (Deus), "The Kooks" were present to held an event.
Hugo Claus, Axelle Red, Benoit Lamy, Jan Verheyen, Luc Tuymans, Laurent Busine and hundreds more have participated in the magic of Rick's Boats. Albert Baronian (Art Brussels) explained with
persuasion his artistic strategy.
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How painting
helps Erik Pevernagie
to view the world.
.
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Selection at
Bonhams, London
Post War and Contemporary Art
September 2009
« Living on Probation »
Erik Pevernagie
“ Erik Pevernagie is particularly known for his way of expressing
his artistic philosophy.
Through his pictorial representation the viewer can discover a
range of typical facets of our current society.
Behind the "matter" one can discern the “idea". Details of life are
used to open doors to universal values.
In this work he is engaged with the problem of aids.
He has been confronted with victims of aids and has understood
that they have been predestined “not to be lucky”.
He has decided to feel actively with those people who have been
condemned to live on probation.”
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Selection at
Christie’s, New York
Rockefeller Plaza 20
September 2007
« Crépuscule du désir »
Erik Pevernagie
Crépuscule du désir: Twilight of desire.
People feel so tired and burnt out by consumption. Says Pevernagie: “They are no longer able to invent themselves. At most, they are prepared to call upon some gadgets in order to create a pretence of desire. But this is only deception. Nothing can make them want anything or anybody anymore. That feeling of wanting or longing has become absent. That specific feeling is definitely dying.” The artist senses the decline of emotions. No time left for long stories. No patience for a better knowledge of fellowmen. No “ardeur patiente” to get to the core. No lenient “Sehnsucht” that gives soothing colours to encounters.
People inexorably yield to the invasion of the catwalk. Disposable goods and fake feelings are easily acquired, and without commitment.
So, definitely we have come into a “Twilight of desire”.
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Selection at
Christie’s, New York
Rockefeller Plaza 20
January 2006
Erik Pevernagie
« Man without Qualities »
“Robert Musil has undoubtedly inspired Pevernagie’s « Man without Qualities ».
By denying any physical presence of the character and leaving simply dress evidence,
the artist gives us a reproduction of the ground zero of the mind.
Indeed, his anti-hero has decided to make tabula rasa and get rid of all acquired alleged qualities.
In his artistic work Pevernagie often claims space for reflection, time for new oxygen, recovery of spiritual regeneration and intervals for active awareness aimed at calling matters into question.”
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Selection at
Sotheby’s, New York
December 2005
Erik Pevernagie
“Absence of Desire”
Absence of Desire: oil, sand and metal filings on canvas
80 cm x 100 cm
“Standing in front of "Absence of Desire", painting by Pevernagie, I wonder: "Who feels the absence of desire? ". The absence is not explained by the decomposed, half-naked, headless female bodies. It is not confined to the painting. On the contrary, the absence of desire gradually invades the beholder who is in front of the painting.
The artistic approach of Erik Pevernagie, the requirements of the composition, the structure of the canvas with its transversal lines and diagonals remind me of the stained glasses of cathedrals.
The large needles of these cathedrals tearing the blue of the sky in their search of god. The iridescent stained glasses pouring light under the high vaults which embody faith and a belonging to the world beyond. The beauty of stained glass removes all the thoughts of a physical world which surrounds man.
One can say that Erik Pevernagie’s "stained glass" rejects the body (rather pointed out by outlines than depicted) in the same way as the Middle Ages rejected the body while accentuating the face which was transformed into an icon. The metal framework of the "stained glass" is transformed into a kind of cage, of grid which imprisons the body.
But with Erik Pevernagie this rejection of the body leads us into a dead end: there are no faces, no heads: their absence precisely underlines the body which has to be denied.
In the course of the centuries the human body has been admired for its beauty and its plasticity. Man has appreciated the joy of the flesh. But the body has also been rejected and even perverted.
Erik Pevernagie’s painting represents the indifference, the insensitivity towards the human body and woman’s body in particular. It outlines man’s asexuality and inaction.
Pevernagie notes that his (I quote) “contemporaries are convinced they know the world inside out. They tasted life in all its aspects and feel now that they are at the end of their tether. They are tired and are no longer able to invent themselves. At most, they are prepared to call upon some gadgets in order to create a pretence of desire. But this is only deception. Nothing can make them want anything or anybody anymore. That feeling of wanting has become absent. That specific feeling has definitely died.”
Absence of desire has become the metaphor of absence of life.
"Absence of Desire" is the stained glass window which opens into the gap of the cathedral of emptiness.( L.Krasnova)
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Selection at
Horta, Brussels
Erik Pevernagie
« You never get a handkerchief
when you really need it»
June 2005
“You never get a handkerchief when you really need it ”
100 cm x 100 cm
“The handkerchief the girl didn’t get, when she really needed it.
The artist has been keeping this image in the camera obscura of his memory and has translated it on the canvas.
Erik Pevernagie decomposes the scene. Face and handkerchief are caught in a pattern of lines and surfaces.
In a time where feelings are kept a secret and showing one’s feelings seems ludicrous and ridiculous the painter opposes two fundamental elements of daily life: tragedy and comedy.”
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Selection at
William Doyle, New York
Modern and contemporary art
Erik Pevernagie
« Esprit d’Escalier »
May 24, 2005
“ Esprit d’escalier, wit of the staircase: Those biting ripostes that are thought of just seconds too late,
on the way out of the room.
Erik Pevernagie is a pictorial story teller. He brings to life events from our collective memory. Events everybody has been faced with, at least, once in his lifetime.
The painter conceptualizes this feeling of momentary powerlessness and abstracts this situation on the canvas.
A character and a small bulb (a lightening idea) are introduced in a framework of geometrical lines and surfaces .
Again and again Pevernagie takes up the challenge
of walking on the edge of the abstract and the figurative expression.” (L. Krasnova)
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Selection at
Horta, Brussels
November 2004
Erik Pevernagie
„ Une femme peut en cacher une autre“
«Always listening to the world around him Erik Pevernagie grants to our fellow man a dominating place in his paintings. The individual is replaced in his environment, which is sometimes evoked by graffiti, and seems to be absorbed, dissolved by the elements surrounding him. The subtle touches of color, the half-abstract, half-figurative shapes, and the specific framing lead to the dissolution of the individual whose life seems to be but superficiality. Pevernagie invites us to go beyond the superficial barriers in order to discover the mystery behind his characters who are in perpetual tension as if they were waiting for something else, for another life.» (Le vif L’express)
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Selection at
William Doyle, New York
May 2004
Erik Pevernagie
« Waiting for a moment »
”We read the title and the visual content of the painting is being transposed onto a philosophical scale. The rough and schematic manner of the painter deprives the represented figure of any particular and personal feature, thus making it easier for the beholder to imagine himself at the place of the figure.”(L. Krasnova)
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Selection at
Bonhams, London
November 2004
Erik Pevernagie
« Waiting for a place behind the Geraniums»
"The artist gives us an iconographic representation of
time going by, time being wasted, time being killed.
He shows us an abstract image from the collective memory: man sitting at his window behind his familiar flowers, impatiently waiting for
retirement, longing for eternal peace.
By means of geometrical compositions and lines the artist guides us through chronological and psychological time.
Real time and wishful thinking."
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Selection at
Nagel, Stuttgart
October 2002
Erik Pevernagie
« This is no chicken food »
« This is no chicken food » Oil on canvas (80 x100 cm)
"The artist gives us an iconographic representation of
time going by, time being wasted, time being killed.
He shows us an abstract image from the collective memory: man sitting at his window behind his familiar flowers, impatiently waiting for retirement, longing for endless peace.
By means of geometrical compositions and lines the artist guides us through chronological and psychological time.
Real time and wishful thinking."
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Selection at
William Doyle, New York
December 2004
Erik Pevernagie
« The Power behind the Glory»
“The artist realizes that the world in general and life
in particular are governed by important
messengers.
He is aware that several undercurrent drives may push us in all kind of
inexplicable directions.
Power and glory are two such important elements.
Emphasizing the dialectical approach of matters and situations has been a main concern of this painter.
Erik Pevernagie has been focussing on translating interferences between different ”qualities” into iconographic
transcriptions.”
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Selection at
Drouot, Paris
Catherine Charbonneaux
October 2004
Erik Pevernagie
»Le ballon est chez le voisin »
« The artist gives us iconographic a representation of childhood reminiscence, an image of our collective memory, an emotional confrontation during a playful interval: Ball unrecoverable, because of angry or absent neighbour.”(I.c.a)
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Selection at
Ketterer, Hamburg
March 2003
Erik Pevernagie
“Would time be patient “
“The transverse lines bar the space where the figure appears, or perhaps it is the beholder who is expelled from the scene representing the very last moments. Those lines distort in some way the picture and prevent the spectator from seeing the perspective clearly. Are not they a graphic metaphor suggested by the painter for the time introducing the fourth dimension?
The painter gives a visual representation of his ideas and with the title he stimulates the thought and the imaginative stock of the beholder. His graphic concept being concise and simple he pushes us toward reflection. A door, a figure, a bag and the title extend the horizons of time which flees, breathes, remembers, builds up associations, changes, makes things relative and though in a hurry may be patient perhaps... “ (L.Krasnova)
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Selection at
Christie’s, Amsterdam
June 2004
Erik Pevernagie
« Fear of the white Page »
“His message, like a light beam across the fog of the
human condition, calls our attention to the fragment, to help us to explore the universe.
The detail is chosen as the starting point of the possible knowledge, deepening our perception and conscience.
Pevernagie offers us the first pieces of a puzzle we have to assemble.
He freezes the moment as a password to disclose the eternity. (Prof. R.Puvia)”
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Selection at
Ketterer, Berlin
October 2001
Erik Pevernagie
”Prêt-à-penser”
”Prêt-à-penser”
„Belgian artist, who adds geometrical colour surfaces in his work to characters or architectural spaces. In addition he uses material on his canvasses such as sand and metal chips, which grant to his pictures their special surface texture and which seem to submerge the separate entities into a refined moderate colouredness through the reflection of the light.” ( Ketterer, Hamburg )
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Selection at
Phillips, London
November 2000
Erik Pevernagie
”Figure in the doorway”
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Selection at
Drouot, Paris
Catherine Charbonneaux
October 1998
Erik Pevernagie
”Pris dans l’éclat du soleil”
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« L' homme est au centre de son oeuvre, à la fois intégré dans son milieu naturel, on pourrait parfois dire absorbé par lui, et pourtant semblant le renier, d'autant plus fortement que Pevernagie introduit dans ses peintures des graffitis témoignant de la solitude de l'être humain au monde, de son aliénation dans le tissu urbain. »( Encyclopédie Bénézit, Paris)
Ric’s Boat invite Nicolas Vial, illustrateur
« Le Monde »
http://users.skynet.be/rics-art-boat/gallery/other%20artists.htm
Laurent Busine
Atom Egoyan, film director.
Claude Lelouch, film director
