tom liekens (be)

tom liekens graduated at the royal academy for fine arts in antwerp and his work was part of a large number of expositions, both group and solo
in belgium and abroad.
his paintings can be found in private and public collections such as the museum of contemporary Art antwerp (muhka), dexiaBank, national bank belgium, antwerp college and university of antwerp.

liekens’ oeuvre consists of large-scale paintings created by using a specific visual language. a subject that recurs in his work is nature in its artificial form as we
know it in zoological gardens and natural history museums.

in later work exotica from the 19th century and the fascination of the then culturally dominating bourgeoisie with all things foreign formed a source of inspiration.
the past two years liekens has been working on a series of large panorama paintings mixing up the cultural and the natural in archetypal landscapes with a number of cultural references placing them in a new
context.

by using elements from everyday live environments the paintings arouse a certain feeling of familiarity quickly replaced by a feeling of discomfort and alienation.


           
   
      (c) vincent verbist // actionfields gallery 2009