Section Liège-Belgique
Section Liège-Belgique | |
Les Expos Les
Artistes
Pierre Houcmant
Born in 1953 in Pepinster
Education
- studied at Saint Luc Fine Arts School, Liège, 1972-1974
- studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, 1987-1989
Exhibitions
- he has organised his own exhibitions and has taken part to many group exhibitions throughout Europe, New-Zealand and the United States.
- his works have also been on display at some art fairs in Belgium, Holland and Romania
- some of his pictures can be seen in private collections and art centres in Europe and in the United States
Publications
Some of Houcmant’s works have been published in various European magazines and art books
His way of working
Nowadays Pierre Houcmant realises pictures dealing with the function of the black colour in a simply way. His works are diptych or triptych which associate a black surface with one or more pictures. This black colour is typical of photography.
The visible topic of the picture isn’t based on black but on silver grey colours that come from a soft print. Therefore, the public immediately identifies Pierre Houcmant’s art process : parts of human bodies on a plain background, parts of human bodies that you can’t determine. This is ambiguous as the viewer discerns the human figures at first sight but he isn’t able to identify which part of the body it is. He is unable to see the off camera, which could allow him to imagine the body of the picture.
Sometimes the body shapes are photographed with an object (e.g. a barked branch, the form of which evokes that of a horn). The viewer must look at this picture carefully and closely to see the body on the picture, and to understand how the body models the visible shape of the horn.
Extract translated from a text by Jean-Michel SARLET, December 1998.
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