Charles Degeyter at Tatjana Pieters

Artist: Charles Degeyter

Exhibition title: the Crawling Space

Venue: Tatjana Pieters, Ghent, Belgium

Date: September 11 – October 23, 2022

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

For ‘the Crawling Space’, Charles Degeyter dug into his childhood. To spark the conversation with his former self, he went on a search to relocate as many of his childhood drawings as possible. The drawings functioned as a powerful vessel for memory and played a fundamental role in the creation of these works. References to the iconography and materiality of paleontological remains and anthropological artefacts are made to visualise the episodic memories he encountered on this journey.

The childhood drawings are translated in the ‘Fossil Plaque’ and ‘Amber Specimen’ series. Similar to the fossil plaques at natural history musea, the drawings are leftover fragments of an incomplete past. By delving into his drawings and linking them to specific memories he was able to puzzle some pieces of his youth back together. But the specific contexts and intentions of the original drawings were often lost. Hence the reason why some of the plaques are translations of the original drawings and some are interpretations.

Where the fossil plaques are very specific memories, the skeletons are more elusive translations of different phases. These colourful large wooden skeletons are embodiments of certain periods or dominant feelings in Degeyter’s youth.

The series of pet sarcophagi, which started in 2019, was Degeyter’s first search for an alternative approach to transience. The first contact with death is often the passing of a beloved pet as a child. An animal that grew up outside its natural context, of which the previous generations were domesticated for years, dies. The question arises whether the animal within its artificial context showed more kinship with a toy than with its wild counterpart. The ultimate transformation of a pet into a toy a child can cherish after it’s death seemed a logical continuation of the animal’s questionable reason for existence

Charles Degeyter (BE, 1994) lives and works in Ghent (BE). In 2022 Degeyter will participate in a group show at Geukens & Devil, Antwerp (BE). Other exhibitions include LOSS, Zottegem (BE), Sint-Baafs Cathedral, Ghent (BE), PASS curated by Kris Martin & Jan hoet jr., Vlaamse Ardennen (BE), Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke (BE) and No Pop No Up by Jan Hoet jr., Ghent (BE).