Dirk Van Opdenbosch (Ninove 1951)

 

Studied 'Graphic Arts' at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Ghent. As a student he received several awards like the Pro Civitate price 'Lijn, Kleur, Volume' in 1972 and the Rotary Club Belgium price in 1976. 

 

In collaboration with the vzw Art&Co, he co-organised two mega art

projects in 1997 and 1998 titled 'Noord/Zuid -Nord/Sud', which attracted

more than a hundred Flemish and Walloon artists. 

 

From 2016 until 2017 he was responsible for the project 'Art in a box'

subsidized by VAT, Vrijzinnig Antwerps Trefpunt vzw, which not only

gave young aspiring artists the chance to encounter with each other,

but also to exhibit their

work in the most optimal conditions. 

 

About his work. 

 

As an artist, I focus on the human being as a subject. 

My main goal is to portray the human emptiness that is in each and

everyone of us.

The human being is an uncertain and often damaged creature. 

Despite of this I keep searching for the universal, more specifically;

those deeper-lying instinct that enable us to substract ourselves from that vacuity. With my work I urge people to distance themselves from their camouflage, face their dark cores and accept them which results in a better control of oneself.

 

I also believe that the artist's role, above all things, is to be as true to themselves as they can — within society, the community and the world at large

 

My recent drawings are inspired on the 'Butoh', a specific Japanese dance form which originated in the 60's as a reaction on the pessimism that thrived after the second world war and as a reaction on the horrors of the nuclear attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. 

Butoh-dancers see their dancing as a reflective dialogue between body and gravity.