Artist: David Boon
Exhibition title: Listen to | the shape | must listen
Venue: Base-Alpha, Antwerp, Belgium
Date: January 21 – February 25, 2023
Photography: We Document Art, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Base-Alpha, Antwerp
David Boon’s work arises from his graphic gaze and how he opens that gaze (with feeling). Through a controlled
observation of old magazines, his eye falls on image fragments that he can abstract from a whole. He calls these his one-cuts. Such a onecut is the beginning of his family of shapes. Vorm 1 (onecut) has resulted in Vorm 2, and consequently also Vorm 3 and Vorm 4. He consistently uses these forms to tell his story. Sometimes separately, sometimes in parts and sometimes combined into a composition. But always in connection with each other, because one form flows from the other. By twisting and turning the shapes and forcing them into certain positions, residual shapes and new shapes sometimes emerge. It is also important to give this attention and perhaps re-isolate it. David builds a world of his own with these forms, inviting you to explore it, to pay attention and thus enrich the experience and the imagination.
Time and attention
David takes the time to observe, weigh and weigh and make choices. With full attention, don’t loosen your gaze, attach it, even if you think you’ve seen it all. Because if you link attention to looking, you come closer and the chance of resonance and a feeling is greater. He invites you to do the same in works. Take your time and observe with attention and feel.
Time also expresses itself in the work in a different way. By deriving a new form from an existing form, a (time)line is created in which all forms are connected. New forms, for example, also bring peace through their recognisability.
Control and rest
From the chaos around us – and sometimes in his head – David seeks peace. In his works he therefore often departs from guidelines and limits that he himself has set. This demarcation gives control and peace of mind. For example, the form elements of Vorm 3 originated from logical construction via a grid. In a further step also the works in which he controls the forms or form elements within a certain proportion
(eg: square / proportion Vorm 3).
Balance
David is a thinker and a sensitive person. Balancing the ratio against the emotion is always the challenge for him. His work starts from the ratio and in the elaboration he looks for ways to show that feeling. (The technique of pulled paper is a good example of this.) This balance ensures the right tension in his work, a contrast in balance.
Listen to | the shape | must listen
The shapes have their individuality and certain characteristics that you cannot ignore. But David forces his forms into certain ideas/boundaries/positions, creating new approaches, compositions and new forms. These effects are created precisely by that limitation. The structure is there, but the output always shows up as a surprise and is something new that emerges without you looking for it, and that shows itself. It is then up to the artist to decide whether or not to go into that.
These boundaries provide control, but this control also makes it sometimes difficult to ‘get in’. The opening is in the vulnerability. And he opens it by removing the top layer of the paper. This creates a tactile, vulnerable and uncontrolled new layer. We are, as it were, under the skin, where the emotions are hiding. David hopes we can meet in that vulnerability.
