My path

What lies at the heart of it all... 

 

Ever since I was a child, I've been a creative soul. I inherited my creativity from my father, who would spend hours doing crafts with my sister and me, using playdough amongst other things.  In my child's eyes he was creating the most perfect figurines.  My father's creativity always made a deep impression on me.

I was a very introverted child, withdrawn and extremely shy. I often borrowed craft books from the library and tried out craft projects at home on my own. I remember finding peace in nature in the "Meetjeslands Krekengebied", making collections (four-leaf clovers, dried flowers, shells, ..), devouring children"s books and drawing endlessly, with a particular fondness for coloured pencils.  The interplay of colour shades and shadows already fascinated me back then.

 

Being the nostalgic person I am, I kept almost all my childhood drawings.  I drew the pictures below when I was 11 years old.  The drawing of Prince when I was 16 years old.

Shadows

 

At secondary school, the art class  became my favourite subject.  Drawing remained my passion. 

 

Later still, as a young adult, I studied sculpture at the Sint-Lucas Academy, where I made plaster molds of clay sculptures. 

 

Because of my fascination with beautiful photographs, I saved up for my first camera so that I could capture "my" world. Through the camera lens, I sought out the perfect image, the interplay of dark and light, shadows and the right shades. Before long, my camera permanently replaced my (coloured) pencils.  

 

Meanwhile nature always played a major role in my life. As a teenager I joined a local youth organisation for nature study. As a youngadult I qualified as a herbalist and nature guide.  Later I worked for Greenpeace, WWF and was a nature guide for many years, guiding kids in a forest.   I also worked in a Nature reserve, where I was coaching volunteers. My love for nature is deeply ingrained in my personality and values.  So it was only natural this would later be reflected in my work.

 

 

Flow

 

As an adult, my creativity was long overshadowed by life"s many challenges.  When my daughter was born, I felt revitalised as motherhood gave me the green light to return to colouring, painting and crafting, this time together with my child. 

 

It was only during the Covid pandemic, however, that I rediscovered how I could give myself introspection, peace and energy through creativity.  I took up artjournaling and experimented with various media during that time. 

 

I remember crystal clearly the moment I was leafing through magazines and, whilst admiring some beautiful photographs, suddenly had the inspiration for a surrealistic image.  I started cutting out shapes and, for the first time in years, I slipped into the same flow I,d experienced as i was doing crafts or drawing as a child.  Cutting out the shapes with concentration and precision... Searching for the right colours and patterns...Arranging the cut-outs until a fitting image emerged... This gave me such a sense of fulfilment that this art form soon became my favourite artistic pursuit. 

 

 

Collage for my boyfriend (click to zoom)

Collage of my grandmother (click to zoom)

Surrealism

 

Gradually, I discovered that I prefer to create playful compositions, which often result in a surreal or dreamlike image.  In my dream world, anything is possible.  Elements of nature often feature in the landscape, due to my deep love of nature. 

I find it a meditative experience when I start cutting, assembling and pasting.  My thoughts fall silent and my intuition takes over completely. I am a true analogue collagist.  I do not use any digital editing whatsoever.  As soon as a strong visual narrative has been created, I am overcome by the satisfaction of a complete whole.  

Visual language

 

I enjoy exploring my own inner world by working around a particular theme.  So one of my collage styles is intro- and retrospective.  When I'm collaging,  I can transform everything I feel inside.

 

Rather than putting what I feel into words, I let myself be carried away by the creation of a powerful visual language. 

Nostalgia

 

My major collage style is all about the vintage vibe. Beautiful photographs and visual images has always played a major role in my life.  Being quite nostalgic myself, I often use vintage photographs, which I combine with my own photographs or (parts of) images from magazines and books, in a way that creates an entirely new image.

 

I love trawling through flea markets in search of suitable material. Finding the right concept and form takes up a large part of the process. It often takes days before I find the right images that match the feeling I'm trying to capture. Sometimes a collage is set aside for a few weeks to be finished later, when suddenly the final piece of the puzzle is found.  For me, this process is just as important as the actual assembly and the final result itself. 

 

I never know in advance what the collage will look like. It emerges and changes as I go along, and I place my complete trust in the process. Shaping the different layers, working piece by piece, shifting them around and finally securing them in place is like solving a mystery.  To me it feels like a magical process. 

"Collage is the noble conquest of the irrational, the coupling of two realities, irreconcilable in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them"

Max Ernst

All images are copyrighted|Kathelijne Vangheluwe