page_title: Erik Pevernagie
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Erik Pevernagie / Work
caption_attribution_description: (90 x 120cm), Oil and metal on canvas. Women may sometimes feel like aliens emerging in a hesitant future, in a men's world with impervious codes, and have the impression to be like dots in uncharted territory. Discovering the crucial points, which don't line up with the achievability of reality, may be a key to the right compass in life. If we are not apt to steer our life and engineer our individuality, we may become preys of the pecking order and be constrained to keep on loitering like panting cardboard characters turning into walking dead. Some women don't care about decorum and conventions, wanting, first and foremost, being independent. They don't like to waste time with people they don't like, preferring to live a life as a 'tramp,' with ' the free, cool wind in their hair,' no matter what people might say, not in the least concerned with any pecking order. Like many women, numerous strangers and newcomers in big cities may feel surrounded by a hazy cloud of anonymity and a wall of seclusion. They remain, unadulterated aliens, unplumbed individuals in a terra incognita. Being part of a melting pot with distinctive identities, they try to assert their personality and take ownership of their respective individuality. Tensions may simmer, however, and the underlying causation might be difficult to assess. When aliens come and settle in suburban areas, they are often surprised about the perplexing behavior of the 'local tribes' and watch 'natives' like fish in aquariums. On the other hand, the flow of strangers is often reluctantly accepted by the natives, who are flabbergasted by the new faces 'decorating' or 'contaminating' their environment and the bizarre conduct of the intruders may unsettle them. This double repulsion could be countered by better information and communication. Phenomenon: Communication Factual starting point &#160;: woman confronting townscape .
context_page_description: Erik Pevernagie is a Belgian painter and writer, living in Uccle/Ukkel, who has held exhibitions in Paris, New York City, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, London, Brussels and Antwerp.
context_section_description: The artist seems to get his inspiration from several aspects of the social fabric. Communication and in-communication are recurring central themes in his work. Topics like alienation, seclusion, unrest, insecurity appear to be starting points for visual productions. Viewing a painting becomes a semiotic experience, and words, titles, sentences, and graffiti should be extensions and elucidations of a visual effect. The creation of a work is, at the same time, plastic and literary.
  If "details" add to the structure of the work, the small items of life seem to be the cornerstones through which the viewer can comprehend the world. While particular events from the collective memory are translated into the canvas, the artistic approach consists of hiding the subject in a singular environment.
  The whole work is practically unclassifiable, as various currents seem to culminate in it. While the characters are integrated into their environment, through geometric lines and compositional planes, figuration and abstractionism are forced to a compromise, visibly with a view to generating a range of emotions and reflections.
  As the material on the canvas and the color process play an essential role, sand and metal filings are used to give a distinctive texture. The artist obviously has a dialectical approach towards "presence" and "absence," and towards the "painted" and "non-painted" matter in art, which seems to create a kind of tension, visually and mentally.
caption: Erik Pevernagie. Terra incognita (90 x 120), oil & metal on canvas
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