25 Oct 2010

Nick Ervinck at KORAALBERG Gallery, Antwerp

Nick Ervinck at KORAALBERG Gallery

The Belgian artist Nick Ervinck explores the borders between various media. He tries to find an interaction between virtual constructions and hand-made sculptures. A lot of different media are used by the artist such as: prints, video and digital drawings. They lead to the making of sculptural forms made of painted plaster, polyester and wood. In his digital prints and animations Nick Ervinck creates a surrealistic space by strange combinations of forms and by playing widely with volumes, proportions and colours. At least, one can say the virtual world of this artist is strange. Polymorphic, synthetic forms invade 'seemingly' authentic rooms, monumental buildings are detached from the ground and become living sculptures or daring combinations of ships, churches and skyscrapers float over an endless sea. This world is a fiction, constructed and deconstructed by an almighty creator. Tired of playing games by others, Nick Ervinck created his own world.

He recieved several prices for his work including The Rodenbach Fonds Award in 2008. Recently he showed work at MOCA Shanghai, MARTA Herford, Kunstverein Ahlen, Zebrastraat Ghent, Brakke Grond Amsterdam, MAMA Rotterdam and Telic Art Exchange Los Angeles/Berlin.

In AGRIEBORZ imagery of human organs from medical manuals is used as building material to construct an organic form, a larynx 'gone wild'. It seems to be recognizable as there is a visual connection to human organs, muscles, nerves, etc. But there is no coherent organization, causing an inability to exist in a reality like we know it. The image thus is ungraspable, both through its scale and this hovering in a virtual, potential or science fictional world.

AGRIEBORZ was largely inspired by the conversations the artist had with two professors at KU Leuven: Pierre Delaere who is a researcher in the field of the reconstruction of the larynx, and Koen van Laere who's research is situated in neurology and nuclear medicine. This cross-fertilization inspired an imagery that hovers somewhere between the organic and the mechanical. It produces a perfectly symmetrical cyborg figure. The black and yellow used in the image play a battle of their own; being each rendered in their own specific way the black seems to battle the yellow. It's a dynamic ying-yang interaction, a challenge between good and bad.

A sculpture like AGRIEBORZ not only points to a growing tendency to integrate technology in the human body. It also uses the intriguing possibility to use living tissue as technological material. Already we are capable of creating replicas of human bones on the basis of 3D-models from CAT-scans. Bioprinting, with which we can print organs will be further developed and commercialized. The importance of my work lies in the fact that I use these technological developments in an early stage and develop a typical and highly recognizable imagery. Working in a close parallel to science I am able to develop new realities that can in turn inspire scientists.

AGRIEBORZ exists in multiple versions: as the 2D wall print as shown at Museum M (Leuven, Belgium), as a small-scale edition, a light box en finally as a 3D print. In this way it comments in several ways on any imaginary restrictions sculpture might pose.