Miscellany - articles - Prof. dr. Frans VYNCKE
The central theme in the work of Gerard Bauwens is the eternal figure of the women that he brings always in new variations. Those who are familiar with his artwork will remember that recently he placed the woman in the ambiance of sun, sea, the beach and the enjoyment of the summer on that beach. In the present exhibition he takes another variaton on the time, i.e. The aesthetic of the female face, or even better the aesthetic hiding of the female look.
Two motives are in the picture, bandages and veils, two solutions who, in their own way, make sure that the face is covered up or changed. The drawings showing bandaged faces allude to plastic surgery, with the purpose to make the face more attractive. The purpose of the veil is to make the face more fascinating. The veil can also be used to cover up a part of the face and in that way give it a mysterious charm.
In both cases the basic idea is the same, how can I maximise the aesthetic of the face, by changing it with plastic surgery or by hiding it. Assuming this idea Gerard Bauwens introduces a number of drawings on this theme who are varied in an intelligent and aesthetic sensible way. We see series of faces combined in different ways with bandages and veils. Aesthetic about the aesthetic presentations of an aesthetic theme.
Aesthetic presentation like I said. It is worthwhile to look at the qualities of the artwork of Gerard Bauwens, f.i. the composition.
In several drawings the figure of the body or the face appears more than once. In this case the most important is to join this figures to one artwork. Well you can see that all the parts meet together in a large curling line or diagonally line, or even in a circular movement. All this elements of movement show the rhythm. In certain drawings it is so that, if we follow the different faces, we turn around in a perfect circle.
Concerning the compostion, I would like to stop at a certain drawing, because the pattern of the triangle is the important part here. The work exists of two parts. The upper part shows us a statue of the city of Ghent, it represents three symbolic figures, a naked women expressing the beauty, an athletic man representing the power and a figure having a triangle on his breast as the symbol for wisdom.
Under this three fixed figures Gerard Bauwens draws a living woman in a rhythmic movement also in the form of a triangle. The repetition of the pattern of the triangle has a double function. Formally, in this way the two parts of the drawing are joined together and with respect to the content the triangle explains a certain awakening of the female figure by the association of the symbol of wisdom.
Another aspect is the technique of Gerard Bauwens. He made an important evolution. He used to draw only with charcoal, now he works with charcoal and pencil. The way of drawing is still the same. We know that Gerard Bauwens puts up his volumes by a number of changeable curling lines and in between he leaves a lot of white. By the fact that he uses charcoal and pencil together he obtains a larger variety of tones.
Charcoal is dark and powerful, pencil is soft, grey and misty. In this way be becomes a large number of shades, going from white, through a number of greys, toward heavy darks.
Finally I will revert to the theme. The central theme of the exhibition is the aesthetic covering up of the female face. In fact it means that an illusion covers up the reality. The whole artwork of Gerard Bauwens has a sphere of aesthetic hallucination.
His technique also is a part of it : curling lines never totally joined together and leaving white parts of the paper.
The result is that the figures are floating in un unreal dream. Are we not all on this earth living on the line between dream and reality ?
Prof. dr. Frans VYNCKE. 4/10/1986.