Jan Verschueren

Jan Verschueren shows his scrap sculptures at Galerie Sille. There is again a lot of climbing, driving, sailing and working together by his typical men with the heads and hands of terra cotta. There are also the larger standing rulers; prophets or kings, distinguished by their inventive robes and headdresses. Always stately and frontal, with a staff in his hand or with enigmatic hand gestures. There are works, especially those of encounters and climbs, where the event is supported by a stylized, simple line of welded metal. On the other hand, the vehicles – cars, boats, tanks, tractors – are marvels of baroque fantasy and invention, packed as they are with objects trouvés of all kinds of origins that take on a symbolic meaning. Verschueren’s titles are witty and always contribute to a more precise search and discovery of all the elements that make up the personality of the image.

It is a wonderful theme: vases and bladders. Both have the function of temporarily storing fluids, one inside and the other outside the body. Do they come together in a series of works by Verschueren as rhymes in formal language and names? The Belgian Jan Verschueren is a self-taught sculptor/painter. His website contains the poem: “HOW”, the first lines of which read: “How rust can be beautiful / How beauty can rust…”