Tom Liekens
(Bonheiden,
1977 )
The works of Tom Liekens are monumental in scope and size, his imagery is exuberant and distinctly figurative. Wild compositions in which he employs hyperbolas betray the influence of teacher Fred Bervoets. Incidentally, Liekens has also been associated with Galerie De Zwarte Panter since his debut. His plastic adventures have a great internal logic. He lards them with quotes and references, drawn from physics, art history, films ... Liekens likes to puncture myths. He analyzes man's relationship to nature, to animals and to his fellow man, his urge to possess or dominate, his desires and his loneliness. In artificial paradises - from deceptively idyllic landscapes about zoos and natural history museums to tropical plant cabinets and interiors - Liekens performs, among other things, plastic dinosaurs, hunting trophies and all manner of anachronisms. Like his canvases in oil and acrylic, mainly horizontally oriented, Liekens' graphic work also takes on monumental dimensions. Besides etchings that form a blueprint for paintings, he makes large collages in which he combines woodcuts with etchings and structural prints of pieces of bark, branches or plants.
