Arthur Dufoor at Tatjana Pieters

Artist: Arthur Dufoor

Exhibition title: Sober

Venue: Tatjana Pieters, Ghent, Belgium

Date: June 24 – September 10, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Tatjana Pieters

Brussels based artist Arthur Dufoor has been honing his skills in classical oil painting for the past 10 years; starting out with a focus on the human body as a means of expression, his work slowly took on a more abstract language. Central to this approach comes the fluidity and aggressiveness of intensely coloured shapes and patterns, where the love for the Old Masters always shines through and remains tangible.

Arthur Dufoor’s work departs from a radical intuitive approach, communicating raw emotions and expressive sensibility through large scale oil paintings. Drawing from diverse influences such as Italian mannerism, expressionism and post-modernist painters, Dufoor’s work always balances between the confessional and the brutal; his paintings constitute an abstract language, but always remain close to life in a personal quest for the so-called ‘perfect painting’. Everything in Dufoor’s work evolves around the communication of his “inner dialogue”—what he calls his “diary”. Functioning as a large scale notebook, Dufoor’s work often integrates various notes and quotes from his daily life and can function as a riddle concerning his motives.

In doing so, the tension between personal vulnerability and the ruthlessness of the abstract language becomes apparent; underneath a veil of highly stylized figures and colours, the ever present hardship to communicate in a plastic manner various emotions competes with the violent act of painting. Through this physical effort, Dufoor tries to make the inexplicable, explicable in relation to himself and those around him. Needless to say, this gives his artistic practice a decisive compulsive dimension; diverse elements from everyday hustle and random perception constantly get integrated as a means to cultivate his grand diary.

No wonder there’s a conscious choice to have no central dogma or extensive theoretical groundwork— to remain ‘sober’ and sensible, to aim for a picture, a place where it’s possible to say what’s otherwise left unsaid.

In this sense, Dufoor’s work can be viewed as a revolt against the overarching pretence of the theoretical concept as a self-indulgent means to be culturally and politically ‘relevant’. In his rather traditional view concerning art as a stylized interpretation of reality, the emotional and spiritual tangibility is essential: the need to be ‘contemporary’ is absent and, in a way, despised. Striving to convey personal and universal experiences through aesthetic sublimation, the painting as a standalone artefact tries to become the ‘only’ reality, a sober reality, stripped from any form of conceptual hubris or commercial discourse. As a result of this sober and no-nonsense devotion to his practice, there is no need to ‘cover up’ or ‘hide’ (even behind texts like this one).

However brutal the outcome of this pursuit, the silent need for a far-off dream of clarity, sobriety continues to underpin the energy in Dufoor’s artistic practice.

Text by Raphaël Aziza Van Cappellen

Arthur Dufoor (BE, 1997) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. He graduated as MFA at LUCA School of Arts in Ghent (BE). Previous solo exhibitions include ‘Pneuma’, Studio23 Gallery, Ghent (BE) and ‘Forever Alive’, Diskus, Aalst (BE). Selected previous group exhibitions include ‘Lucky Charms’, Ballroom Gallery, Brussels (BE), ‘Together Apart’, Diskus, Aalst (BE), ‘PUSHING BOUNDARIES/EXPLORING THE LIMITS’ at Pilar, Brussels (BE), ‘Portraits #1’, Lavallee, Brussels (BE) and ‘HYPERMARKET’, Kunsthal, Ghent (BE).