Hans Op de Beeck: Silent Rooms

The title of the exhibition at Galerie Krinziger, Silent Rooms, refers to the atmosphere of intimate spaces in which life seems to have silently come to a standstill – quiet, languid, as if in a gentle sleep. Rooms bathed in a gentle, weak, diffuse light, or filled with the silent presence of night.

The artworks present life-size representations of anonymous figures – children and adults – at rest or steeped in thought, still lifes of everyday objects and contemporary vanitas scenes, as well as interpretations of garden elements such as, for instance, a dark lily pond. Rooms are, metaphorically, also the quiet places in our mind, in our memory, the places where we store memories or organize our thoughts. This dormant whole aims to address, in all its simplicity, the timelessness we experience in those moments when we cease to fulfil a social role, when we withdraw, silently turn in on ourselves, get in touch with our breathing, our thoughts, our core. The life-sized figures all have their eyes closed, turned inward. The still lifes and elements of nature are silent, as if petrified. In this exhibition, Op de Beeck combines banal and decorative objects, everyday postures and classical poses, nature and culture. In all of these works, aspects of timelessness are combined with contemporary props and details. The artist here does not seek to uncover any spectacular form or content, but rather deep meaning, and poetry.