Babs Decruyenaere
Rain or shine, Babs goes on long walks – at times to inhospitable places – where she picks up tiny objects. She observes, selects and hand-picks all sorts of rejects which she consummately makes her own. To pick up a trinket is to accept and appropriate it, take it to your heart and intensely cherish it, for it fills a particular inner need. Going walking – this modern-day hunter-gatherer’s quest – is always a momentous occasion.
Their morphology, structure and texture make stones into the archive and library of the origin of earthly life. Each time Babs places a stone in the palm of her hand and clasps it between index and little flinger, she makes up a warm bed for it and embarks on her own story. The hand is the unit of measure: when it fits in one hand, you can keep it. At times, it’s as if the artist’s soul has nestled in the palm of her hand. Bab’s creations harbor her physical and psychological essence: fragile, vulnerable yet also firm and strong.
After graduating in graphic design and photography, she resolutely opts for the back-to-basics approach of analog black-and-white photography without a camera. This entails, amongst others, camera obscura works/installations, photograms, images of all that blooms and flourishes, and lots of arduous dark-room work. She photographs aspects of nature: a landscape, its many minuscule details, and associates them with the flow of her own, meandering inner life. Her oeuvre may take on many forms, but the central principle remains the same, in that it moves from the simple and minute, over enduring effect and transformation to our complex, large-scale world. Take the monumental mobiles representing the cosmos an its up-currents, for example. From micro to macro, from cell to organism, from dot, line, circle to spiral. Yet always keenly aware of man’s insignificance. Babs’ compositions never stray from her own self. Images and stones are not vehicles for romantic metaphors or artistic demonstrations. She indeed only assembles what feels right. Her quest is an intuitive one, even though the route may have been mapped out ages ago. This work is essentially the activity of the child Babs, who spent years in a seaside sanatorium, pockets bulging with what today forms the basis of her oeuvre. ‘Surely I could do this myself ‘, some beholders will say, since it all looks very familiar. What matters, however, is the potential for empathy; which, incidentally, is the way an artist forges a link with his/her public. This kind of beachcombing brims with youthful, tireless attempts at solving the morphological mysteries of the cosmos and universe. These are strong, pared down specimens by someone who lives and breathes nature, and has embarked on a quest that will never end. Going to see this work is like witnessing the elation of first stumbling upon something in nature. Watching rapture being rekindled is highly infectious.
Wim Van Mulders
photo by Eva Donckers
photo homepage by Joke de Wilde
Solo exhibitions
Booklaunch of Putting up walls (accompanied by new stone stacks and photographic work)
Valerie Traan Gallery, Antwerp
12/11/2021 – 11/12/2021
‘Equilibrium’
Valerie Traan Gallery, Antwerp
26/12/2020 – 30/01/2021
‘A Heart Made of Stone, They Said’
NO/Gallery, Ghent
06/03/2020 – 29/03/2020
‘renaissance’
Schönfeld Projects, Antwerp
Duo-show with Jesse Willems
25/10/2020 – 29/11/2020
‘When you look closely a whole universe arises’
Geukens & De Vil, Knokke
05/10/2019 – 10/11/2019
‘I don’t need my eyes to see’
Pinguin Space, Brussels
27/01/2019 – 17/02/2019
‘Would I be able to breathe without you’
Tique Art Space, Antwerp
04/10/2018 – 27/10/2018
‘Babs Decruyenaere’
woot ruimte voor kunst, Antwerp
13/04/2014 – 10/05/2014
‘Light Dissolving Sight #2’
Passage, Sint-Lucas, Antwerp
12/01/2012 – 07/02/2012
project Numero 33
private house, Zoersel
05/06/2011 – 03/07/2011
‘on record’
(expo for one night)
SECONDroom, Antwerp
05/06/2010
‘h/v’
Forum+ (Concertgebouw), Bruges
09/10/2009 – 03/01/2010
‘(In)between’
In-View #6 /Atelier Solarshop, Antwerp
05/11/2009 – 05/12/2009
‘Light Dissolving Sight’
Dagmar De Pooter Gallery, Antwerp
07/09/2007 – 20/10/2007
Group exhibitions
wondering wandering wintering
Curated by Els Wuyts en Mieke Dobbles
Villa Les Zéphyrs, Middelkerke
03/01/2023 – 16/04/23
The Drawing Room
Geukens &De Vil, Knokke
26/12/2022- 26/02/2023
Art Antwerp
Antwerp expo – booth A19
15/12/2022 – 18/12/2022
FINIS TERRAE
curated by Geukens & De Vil, Eric Rinckhout, Lien Craps
several locations in Antwerp
17/11/2022 – 26/02/2023
Art on Paper
Vanderborghtgebouw – booth 16-17, Brussels
06-09/10/2022
Opening Dinner
Violet, Borgerhout
26/05/2022 – 14/07/2022
Art Brussels / The Cabinet
Tour & Taxis – booth C34, Brussels
28/04/2022 – 01/05/2022
Small Sculptures
Galerie Michel Rein, Brussels
20/11/2021 – 23/12/2021
TRACES of the future; valerie_traan gallery since 2010
Valerie Traan Gallery, Antwerp
06/02/2021 – 20/03/2021
In an Early Alpha Stage
OORtreders festival, Pelt
11/10/2020 – 18/12/2020
Nature Morte/Nature Vivante
Grand-Hornu, Hornu
24/11/2019 – 08/03/2020
Quatuor
with Paul Gees, Arpaïs Du Bois en Katleen Vinck
Ruimte P60, Assen, (NL)
15/09/2019 – 13/10/2019
Vibrer
Biennale de Photographie en Condroz, Marchin-Ossogne
03/08/2019 – 25/08/2019
WORK FLOW
curator Wim Wauman
Zwijgershoek, Sint-Niklaas
21/042018 – 02/09/2018
Intimate Structures #1
Tique Art Space, Antwerp
07/12/2017 – 23/12/2017
Faire and Square
Bubox, Kortrijk
30/09/2016 – 23/10/2016
Elf na Twaalf
Croxhapox, Ghent
13/04/2016 – 10/05/2016
project #001 one night only expo
Hypermobiel, Antwerp
22/01/2016
‘Crystal mountains’
Mijn Vlakke Land
FotoMuseum, Antwerp
26/06/2015 – 04/10/2015
Welcome to the black box / Spiegelrefleksies
Collaboration with Taco Hidde Bakker
Extrapool, Nijmegen (NL)
08/09/2013
Kortrijk Vlaandert
’t Fort, Kortrijk
04/07/2013 – 18/08/2013
NEMA TOG PODRUMA
Factor 44, Antwerp
17-18/08/2012
‘Plethora’ – Cinema
Voorkamer, Lier
11/052012 – 08/07/2012
Enter II this reality
De Bijl, Zoersel
04/09/2012 – 26/09/2012
7000 Cakehouse Posters voor Bornem
Cultuurcentrum Ter Dilft, Bornem
07/12/2009 – 13/12/2009
Screenworlds Contemporary Photography in the Flemish Parliament
De Loketten, Vlaams Parlement, Brussels
02/10/2008 – 20/12/2008
De Canvascollectie
Bozar, Brussels
23/05/2008 – 15/06/2008
O Que Nos Cerca (what is around us)
Dagmar De Pooter Gallery, Antwerp
07/12/2007 – 20/01/2007
Table Of Contents
Dagmar De Pooter Gallery, Antwerp
01/12/2005 – 21/01/2006
Performance night with Building Transmissions
Galeria Neon, Bologna (I)
16/07/2003
Quarantaine
Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam (NL)
21/05/2003 – 29/05/2003
Zeitraum
2YKgalerie, Berlin (D)
12/04/2003
Chambre à Mèmoires (part 2)
Curator Helena Sidiropoulos
with i.a.Peter Lemmens, Nico Dockx, Mark Luyten, Peter Verwimp en Hans Segers
The Berwick Research Institute, Roxbury (Boston)
4-5/04/2003
Chambre à Mémoires (part 1)
Curator Helena Sidiropoulos
with i.a. Peter Lemmens, Nico Dockx, Mark Luyten en Peter Verwimp
Antichambre, Antwerp
18/01/2003 – 10/02/2003
Publications
contribution to Earth.Rope.Pot.Plant
Magazine curated by Sigrid Volders & Narelle Dore
2015
Screenworld
Publication on contemporary photography from Flanders
2008
catalogus: Canvascollectie
2008
‘…in this space’
Poster publication curated by Helena Sidiropoulos
with i.a. Bill Davenport, Kris Delacourt, Dessislava Dimova, Nico Dockx
2006
’Noise’
Publication for ad!dict magazine #1
2001
Education
1998-2002
bachelor & master’s degree graphic design
KdG hogeschool Antwerp, ABK
2002-2003
master of fine arts – Autonome Beeldende Kunst
2de fase vrije kunsten Post St-Joost
academie St-Joost, Breda (NL)
