Gabriëlla Cleuren

A memory is always coloured, very personal, it is never a fact, which is why it is not really a reliable tool in a court case. It is virtual, it lives in the head, the mind, the heart. It can be coloured by wishful thinking, by conversations about a particular fact, by feelings in general. Gabriëlla: ‘Memories trigger creativity.’
 
For Gabriella, memory is an ocean of inspiration, a world apart from the real world, another virtual world. Gabriella: ‘Virtual worlds are not perfect, it consists of free forms, in a free style. Sometimes they look a bit lumpy, but that's part of their charm. Just like Basquiat's brutal work.’

The series is called ‘The Walk’ because they are mainly inspired by the walks she took and still takes with her husband Wil. He has to walk daily due to health reasons. Gabriella turns those walks into something positive. When she comes home after a walk, she paints what she saw, thought and felt during the walk. Near their house in the St-Niklaas region are 2 large ponds, surrounded by colourful nature, reflections, fish, cormorants. In winter, the ponds are partially frozen, another magical effect.
Rain and wind can also inspire. Deafening noise, water on your feet, birds soaring on thermals. 

These virtual worlds, are worlds of thought , worlds of memory and therefore very personal and also universal. They are often banal histories, often moving, often painful that belong to life, make up our lives.

Just as Alain Platel loves the imperfect, the spastic , the unconscious in dance and grafts his choreography on it, I love memory in art.

It is coloured, overgrown by emotion, distorted by thinking and I use my own, explanatory pictograms to make it easier for the reader to understand.

What speaks except the mouth? The drawing, the image.

The poetically artistic, the clumsy is more interesting than the academic. It is life.

Hence a totally free and sometimes clumsy form. I don't see it as lack, but rather as specific individuality.