19 Apr Thirteen Masters

Fred & Damiaan, acrilic on canvas, 200 x 150 cm, 2015

Luc, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Robbe, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Guy, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Ludo, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Tom, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Wim, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Koen, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Jan, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Herman, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Jeroen, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

Guillaume, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015

In her 13 Masters series, Charlotte painted
13 male artists representing the voice of a generation through arts, music, acting, writing and photography. Several of these artists are internationally successful, but like De Cock choose to stick to their home base of Antwerp. The original idea was to make a series about the local café-culture threatened with extinction. This international port once was the proud owner of a café on every corner; pub crawling being the local sport for centuries.

So, she started with making pictures of her favorite painters in their favorite café, for all of these artists, being good denizens of Antwerp, are fervent barflies. However, soon their personalities overtook the cafés to become purported subjects onto themselves. It became a fascinating challenge for this young painter to portray these masters of their trade, the creators behind their creations, freed from the demands of their audiences or the claims of their collectors, and to paint them with her sober black-and-white palette. As a result, of course, it gave her career a nice boost.

Not unlike one of her so-called “masters”, Fred Bervoets, the focus in her paintings is on herself. Eventually one could perceive these portraits of artists as self-portraits: Charlotte (painted) as Luc Tuymans, as Fred Bervoets, as Koen van den Broeck, as Guy Van Bossche. As these are all men, and most of them of a fatherly age, one could consider them also as self-portraits being her father, the father she never really knew, painting herself in the skin of possible, or desirable, father figures; reason, perhaps, why the eyes are never really alive….

,

(léon lemahieu) 

Thirteen Masters, 13 Master Series:

• Fred & Damiaan, acrilic on canvas, 200 x 150 cm, 2015
• Luc, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Robbe, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Guy, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Ludo, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Tom, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Wim, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Koen, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Jan, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Herman, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Jeroen, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015
• Guillaume, acrilic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 2015