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Leen Voet

Sint-Rita

Leen Voet
Sint-Rita
07.04.2013 > 16.06.2013

STUDIO
The original and the duplicate, the act of copying and the mental process that this involves, are elements that recur regularly in the work of Leen Voet (b. 1971, lives and works in Brussels). In her oeuvre, which in- cludes drawings, paintings, collages and projections, the status of original artistic artefacts takes a central role. Her work deals with authenticity, the aura of the original and the ambiguous nature of a reproduction. It reflects an informed artistic work process where there is room for both delicacy and wit. In the quirky and manually reproduced artworks, both from her own oeuvre and that of others, she examines the typical European commitment to authenticity: the supposedly irrevocable and irreversible truth of the creative act.

The Leitmotif for the creation of these new works is an objective fascination with churches, which in a sense has grown from the working on a project related to Felix De Boeck. In the period 2009-2010 Leen Voet made 774 pencil drawings based on the works of the famous Flemish painter. The total corpus of drawings was collected in the artist’s book, Felix. Reproducing the work of another artist, with a certain compulsion and for such an extended period of intensity, leaves its traces. Ideas regarding the subjugation of the individual to another power crystallized into the present work. Each painting is based on the interior of a church, the majority of which have modern architecture from the 1960’s and 70’s. One thing they all have in common is the fact that the churches are dedicated to a particular holy figure. They are architectural objects named after a person who is also represented by objects contained within the interior. It is the wonder of that peculiar exercise that Leen Voet incorporates into her work. In the grip of the installation not every painting is individually titled, though they do bear in silence the name of the corresponding church: Jezus Arbeider, Sint-Rita, Sint-Alena, Sint-Bartholomeus, Sint-Pius X. The artistic context strips them of their sacredness and they are again reduced to objects.

The exhibition presents itself as a complete installation of paintings and sculptures that involves speci- fic elements of the interior of the studio space, such as lighting, the adjacent passage and the window mosaic. In this way, Leen Voet creates an atmosphere of familiarity when stepping into the area, which in turn is somewhat disrupted by the manifestation of the works themselves, almost like an extra-terrestrial appearing in orbit. Within the arrangements the sculptures formally take on the role of three-dimensional supports for the canvases, which grants a spatial impact the presentation of the images. However, the combination of paintings and sculptures plays with the visual expectations, which is determined by the position of the viewer in the space. Where you suspect dimension, a flat plane is revealed, and what is seemingly a flat plane, appears to conceal volume.
The brute materiality of the sculptures in contrast with the colourful temperament of the paintings creates a tension between control and irrationality. The work declares no morale position. It does not criticize the institution of the church, but nevertheless contains a deliberate footnote commenting on the power of an institution in relation to the individual, on the restriction of the personal experience and individual liberties and the impact of choices.