Dirk Victor CALUWAERTS

Dirk Caluwaerts is a 21st century romanticist. At night his quest for beauty in a polluted world makes him wander desolate and undiscovered inner landscapes. His oil paintings are his ultimate hide-outs. They breathe solitude and melancholy, but also the desire for what Michel Houellebecq described as ‘the possibility of an island’, the desire for a ‘love in which everything seems simple and is given at this very moment.’ Caluwaerts is painfully aware that something essential got lost, something hard to restore. This sense of loss ultimately results in a tempestuous fury. In the unsettling backgrounds of his canvases he evokes the pain of a human being deprived of social interaction or life itself and puzzled by the way mankind has spoilt the beauty of nature. The topics Caluwaerts addresses are obviously not lighthearted, but they do not necessarily result in sadness either. His darkest shades of black contain colourful brush strokes. This love of colour brings lightness as well as a suggestion of hope that is equally present on the content level of his works. Eunoia is what drives the art: beautiful thinking…nothing else matters.

Dirk Victor Caluwaerts °1975, graduated from the Antwerp art academy with highest distinction.