Joris Van de Moortel

Joris Van de Moortel was trained in sculpture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. In 2009 he was a laureate at the HISK in Ghent. In recent years he distinguished himself with strong and consistent contributions to art exhibitions and fairs at home and abroad. His work can be seen at the Armory Show in New York (2010), on Volta Basel (2009), Hoet-Bekaert Gallery, Gent (2008) and in De Singel in Antwerp (2008). That same year he was temporarily attached to the Department of Architecture at the University of Ghent, in the context of a monographic study of museums.

Creation and destruction are often close together in the sculptures and installations by Joris Van de Moortel. Yet as a spectator you get the impression that the artist is very precise and confident in this balancing of two extremes: the work always exhales a restrained and compressed energy. Every stage of ruination leads to an immediate building back up as an organism that constantly regenerates itself, so there is not really a beginning, middle or an end of the work. This does not mean that the artist allows the forms of his work to run rampant. For example, what is striking is the often very close association between a given form or object and its sheath. This pendulum between destruction and protection, between opening up and shuttering, gives his work a strong autonomous character.