VONK
KUNSTENWERKPLAATS VONK_ateliers
VONK_studios
VONK_ateliers offers working places for 25 visual artists in Hasselt and Genk. Divided over 3 buildings, artists can rent an atelier on a yearly basis. Applying for an atelier is possible through the yearly open call in May. VONK_ateliers also engages in specific trajectories with the selected artists to actively deepen and develop their artistic practice.
Joke_HANSEN
In my recent works, I move towards abstraction by trading the traditional support for a shaped panel. For some, the physical borders of the traditional canvas give more grip on what is going on within these borders. However, I tend to ask myself whether this kind of comfort gives me the challenge I need.
These predetermined edges makes me anxious about limitations, but at the same time, this almost unlimited physical freedom results in multiple visual restrictions.
Elias_GHEKIERE
My practice is largely shaped by the stylistic and technical side of making and how these can inform art and life. Fluctuating between painting, drawing, photography and sculpture, I structure the tensions that exist between modes of representation, materiality and technique.
Rachel_DANIËLS
A multitude of superimposed everyday objects, pictograms and other symbols from worldwide (sub)cultures intertwine in Rachel Daniël's installations, which seem to be based on an apparent disorder that deliberately obscures our reading of her work. These heterogeneous associations sometimes show a kind of humor - absurdity even - but often come across as menacing and seem to contain a latent violence.
Anton_KUSTERS
Stemming from an initial documentary approach, Anton is concerned by the human condition and the impossibility of understanding fully, the difficulties of representing trauma, loss of the experience of place, and the act of commemoration. Using installation, abstracted and deconstructed photographic and visual representation, video and sound, his focus lies on investigating other ways of seeing, the limits of memory and remembrance, and the significance of viewer placement and subject-position.
Marnik_NEVEN
The artistic research of Marnik Neven focuses on repetition and labor. Each works starts with the development of a work process. This work process slowly evolves through research and trial and error. This development can consist of unexpected results of the process (for example in the unintentional painting) but also further insights into the work. Because one work is spread over several years this process is part of the work.
Stevie_DIX
Stevie Dix (1990, Genk) is a Belgian artist living and working in Antwerp.
She participated in the Turps Banana Correspondence course 2016/2017, tutored by artist Phil King. Her artistic practice is focused on painting using different meadia such oil por spray paint as to create gestural and spontaneous paintings.
Steve_ROBYNS
At the age of 11 my family moved from Germany to Belgium. For me as a child this had a tremendous impact. Because it meant leaving the world as I knew it behind. It was the starting point of a quest that continues up to this day: what does it mean to be rooted, what is home? By building structures or settlements in abstract places I explore this theme. The latest technological developments resulting in a possible settlement on Mars triggered my imagination on what this could actually mean for mankind.
Thom_TROJANOWSKI
Painting, for me, has always been a very auto-biographical, emotionally charged and honest thing which, like the characters and symbolism in my paintings, I struggle to keep from teetering over the edge. Like the world we live in, at any point they can fall apart and topple upon themselves in a self-deprecating, awkward mess. Drawing heavy inspiration from music greats such as television, wire and the talking heads as well as many other punk and post punk poets, artists and writers.
Jorden_BOULET
Jorden Boulet is educated as a painter but works project-oriented .Both his work method and his artistic work itself can vary visually according to time, space and context: On the one hand, his artwork can take the form of playful and bombastic installations in which sand, wallpaper, inflatable ‘sculptures’ or other utensils are used. On the other hand, the saying ‘less is more’ may apply, in which for example, he shows a series of abstracted paintings in a tightly directed scenography. Yet his work is coherent because of the constant reference to the idea of paradise.
Steven_Antonio_MANES
Steven Antonio Manes (1993, BE) Belgium based Italian visual artist.
Steven spontaneously conducts an in-depth investigation that reflects on the existence and value of man in a world that is fleeting and transient.
His Italian roots have a profound influence on his work. In the South of Italy, he was very inspired and attracted by every aspect of this landscape, but mainly the roughness and abstract shapes. The attraction to the landscape makes the work very grounded, earthly, and gives it character.
Kristof_VRANCKEN
Kristof Vrancken lives and works in Hasselt (BE). His work has been published in national and international books and journals, and has been exhibited in Belgium and abroad.
Emile_HERMANS
As a way of dealing with the complex world of today, I sympathize with the expressive techniques of magical realism as the literary genre. Through the careful selection of media, I tend not to immediately disclose my works as such, but rather present them as the everyday phenomena that lay at their core.
Serge_HAELTERMAN
If Serge Haelterman had lived a few centuries ago, he would have probably been an alchemist. He is vacillatingly in search of the forbidden or secret knowledge.
His objects and drawings invite us to join him on a quest that bears a certain resemblance to the successive stages of the alchemical process.
Lien_HILLEN
While reflecting on my work intense feelings of love and hate simultaneously alternate. Yet this comes as no surprise since these emotions always formed the main incentive in my work. It must arise in a spontaneous way to cause satisfaction. Therefore I tend to jump to the conclusion of creating as an essential part of life and mainly functioning as an escapism from the usual routine of natural order.
Indra_WOUTERS
Indra Wouters is a visual artist creating installations that include sculptural elements, ceramics and metal structures.
In her practice she zooms in on industrial and technological processes and their infrastructures, ranging from mechanical elements to architectural design. Those artifacts stand in for a lesser-known world that is often forgotten – if not consciously rendered invisible- by the self-evident attitude of postindustrial lifestyles.
Jan_SNOEKX
Jan Snoekx is an animation film director, painter and photographer. Inspired by beauty, light and shade and the meaning of reality, he makes images that are best described as cinematic, technological and emotional.
Guy_RUBICON
In his work, Guy Rubicon, tries to look at the relationship between mankind and the natural world. This relationship is not a romantic one. Man is part of the natural world and exists because of nature, but is also the only creation of nature that puts itself outside of it, looking at nature from a distance. This distance between mankind and the natural world did not always exist. For thousands of years mankind lived in balance with the natural world it inhabits, not understanding it, but respecting it, and because we did not understand nature, it became a place of magic, mythology and wonder but also fear, chaos and confusion.
Tine_DEBOELPAEP
I’m interested in how the notions of well-being and self-care have evolved, in relation to religion and under the influence of the dominant ‘isms’ in today’s digital age. Well, it’s no surprise that we collectively struggle with it in a neoliberal-driven society. Can we learn to provide for each other's (emotional) needs while hyper-individualism is trending?
These social topics manifest themselves through installations, soap making, digital collages or reel videos, and of course in the overuse of symbols and art historical references in my visual language.