Manon De Craene’s artwork is characterised by time and abstraction. This translates into boisterous canvases in which colour and lines meet each other in layers. She views time as a fleeting concept. She tries to catch time in dynamic strokes and paints it down. It’s a process that often repeats itself in the same canvas. One could say that time puts literal layers over the piece.

General impressions and emotions form the oil and lube of this tandem. In this way, Manon starts from the daily stimuli, the chaos of the impressions she gets from waiting, walking, and observing man, object, sound, and situation. From a certain prompting, she starts the design of her canvases and drawings/sketches. As time goes on, the work evolves. Layers are added. Within Manon’s work, different shapes don’t take each other into account. Time after time, these shapes want to surpass the previous ones, just as sounds, conversations, and images do in daily life. It’s not a conflict, but rather a journey. A trip with multiple stages, stops that add to or take away from the images and without a previously known outcome.

Manon also creates three-dimensional collages. The postcard is expropriated and cast into a new, modern-day form, a new reality, a new existence. The collage technique allows her to make rapid decisions and fixate the energy of the moment. With visual decisiveness, she processes these flat carriers into spatial constructions that are literally and figuratively being supported by their own fragility.

 

Bio

  • ° 1995

  • Lives and works in Gent, Belgium

Curriculum Vitae

  • Master visual arts
    LUCA School of Arts, Gent

  • Teacher training
    LUCA School of Arts, Gent

Residencies

  • Residency at Arte Ventura
    Spain
    2023

  • Duo residency with Elisia Poelman
    BLANCO Ghent
    2020

  • Platvvorm
    Deinze
    2019

Belgian painter Manon De Craene squatting on the floor, painting on a medium sized square canvas
Artist Manon in her workshop with colorful, square paintings on and against the wall