LUC CLAUS
Luc Claus (Belgium, 1930-2006) was one of the key figures of the post-war European art scene, and dedicated most of his artistic practice to drawing. He developed an autonomous visual vocabulary at the interface between figuration and abstraction which became the bearer of a repressed symbolism with the the human head as recurring Leitmotif. His works are included in major museums and collections worldwide such as the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.
Luc Claus developed an autonomous visual vocabulary at the interface between figuration and abstraction which, averse to any form of symbolism (which he not only avoided, but also mistrusted enormously), unconsciously still became the bearer of a repressed symbolism, derived from the Christian tradition. In this his realities converge with other realities which he, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally makes visible in his drawings. Despite the apparently detached formalism, one gets the feeling that 'one is forced to wander around in an atmosphere of suffering, sacrifice, need and self-destruction.'
— Lieven Van Den Abeele
When you create an idea, you filter it; new concerns are released through the execution of the idea. I don't believe in the idea in and of itself.
If it's easy, you're doing something wrong. You could say that I'm always making the same thing. I still haven't said everything there is to say about that thing. In the end, you still discover an awful lot in yourself.
— Luc Claus