Ysbrant
by Florent Bex
The more closely one studies the work of Ysbrant the more complex and intricate it becomes. It severely tests our incorrigible desire to fathom, label and comprehend everything that is not immediately intelligible. Nonetheless, although Ysbrant's is undoubtedly a highly personal oeuvre, multifaceted in both form and content, there are a number of characteristic elements that make it instantly recognisable.
In the first place there is the choice of subject matter, the leitmotifs that run through Ysbrant's art like a common thread: on the one hand, there are works such as Bathroom, Early Morning, The Journey North, Beach, Stormy weather, Oysters or TV; on the other metaphorical subjects which, with certain exceptions (for example The Flying Dutchman), revolve around the famous female figures of history and mythology: Salome, Isolde, Brunhilde or Judith. In each case the main object or figure is surrounded by innumerable details that seem to want to attack or displace it. The viewer seeks to create a coherent narrative, but to no avail; like an overexcited raconteur, Ysbrant simply inundates you.
In contrast to the Old Masters, who, following the principle of the unity of time and place, sought to condense an episode into its most telling moment, Ysbrant mixes up not only the past and the present, but also the tales themselves, including in them his friends and his own memories. These figures, objects, landscapes, interiors and buildings appear to nestle in and around the central motif. There is a sense of horror vacui: no area of the canvas is left untouched. Nothing could be more complex and chaotic, and yet there is structure and order in these collage-like compositions: the fragments are arranged so as to form a harmonious whole.
One thing is certain: the 'subject' is merely a starting point, an alibi - so much so, in fact, that it seems the real subject is painting itself. Ysbrant does not tell stories; he shows us a process. The motif, which in any case is simply a pretext to begin anew, is soon pushed aside by the artist's urge to paint and the meddling of the many alter egos concealed behind Ysbrant's otherwise calm and goodnatured persona.
Eros and Thanatos are jumbled together in an inextricable knot. The viewer is confronted with images that easily slip away, that can never be properly discerned. The painter's aim is not realistic representation; he seeks only to unveil and divulge. I take pleasure in this elusiveness, as it reminds me constantly of a contradiction inherent in the picture itself, which stimulates the senses with its recognisably figurative details and invites further exploration, but at the same time - being made up only of recollections - resists both description and analysis. This intangibility also makes one realise that memory can do little more than designate a moment that can never be recaptured. Each of Ysbrant's paintings is something inexhaustible, simultaneously revealing and concealing.
There can be no doubt that it is this complexity that sustains the gaze. If one lets oneself be guided by the work's rhythmic, baroque structure, its dialoguing volumes and powerful lines, the details disappear. On the other hand, if one concentrates on the hidden anecdote or the colour nuances one loses the sense of the whole. Our desire to see and comprehend can thus never be fulfilled. The eye is condemned to continue exploring, becoming endlessly lost.
This is an art that extols the never-ending pleasure of seeing, that pays homage to the enigma of representation and meditates on the inexplicable mystery of creation. Ysbrant transfigures the already seen; he shows us not the world as it is but an image that carries within it the truth about seeing. Driven by the indispensable urge to create and from the perspective of his privileged relationship with painting, he continually delves into the heart of the visible, in the (probably mistaken) belief that both the world and the painting are always open to improvement. Does he offer us a vision of a world that never becomes easier and in which life experience only makes things more complicated, or does he show us nothing more than the sum of his memories and desires, his hopes and disappointments? These are pictures which, although they seem in all their complexity to carry within them still more transformations and more as-yet-unborn images, still leave room for the viewer's imagination and the possibility of giving that which is vague and indeterminate one's own interpretation.
As a spectator one also seeks to recapture the process of creation: to what extent does the painter make the painting, or how much does it force itself upon him? Ysbrant himself has said: You can think up a painting but with the first stroke of the brush everything has already gone wrong. Your hand and your materials have a life entirely separate from that of your head and won't just follow blithely along. Paint has a life of its own, which isn't always under your control.
What Ysbrant does seem to have under control is the virtuoso play with the suggestive allusion, with surface and depth, foreground and background, figuration and abstraction, coupled with an extraordinary mastery of colour that determines the transparency or opaqueness of the paint, the harmony or discord of the tones. It makes no sense to try and align his work with a particular artistic trend or even to categorise it at all. Ysbrant is the scion of the great European painting tradition, which he - and his oeuvre proves it - both knows well and admires. It also seems unnecessary to try and give it a rational explanation. The best thing to do is simply to give oneself over to the pleasure of the limitless physical and mental experience of seeing.
Ysbrant 17
