Thomas Van Gindertael
Renowned Belgian artist, Thomas Van Gindertael, was exposed to art from a very early age. At his home he was surrounded by works of such illustrious names as Chagall, Dufy, Max Ernst, Fujita, Magritte, Miro, while his father, a well known poet and artist himself, was Director of Le Centaure Gallery, the most prestigious art gallery in Belgium, from 1927 until the devastating recession of the 1930's.
Thus art came naturally to the young Van Gindertael. Born in 1942, he grew up observing and absorbing the works of artists regarded as the avant-garde of the 1930's - artists who today rank among the greatest of the 20th century. He developed a distinct style of expression all his own, and his evident talent led to his first solo exhibition when he was only 20, which was held in at the Octroi Gallery, Brussels, in 1962. Every year since then, Van Gindertael has held several solo exhibitions, both in Belgium and overseas; his work is found in Japan, United States, Canada, France, Spain, Switzerland and Singapore, while in Belgium his paintings are on permanent display in the country's most prestigious national art galleries, museums and public buildings.
Van Gindertael's Singapore first exhibition was held in 1998 at the Debony Art Gallery, the works was mainly oil on canvas, with some acrylic and ink on paper - which were painted between 1991 and 1996. His recurrent theme, the ocean and the seashore reflect his deep love of the sea, which persists to this day and is the inspiration underlying much of his work, began in early childhood, when he used to spend most weekends at his father's great friend, Paul Delvaux.
The principle technique that Van Gindertael employs has some affinities with the graffito work of Jean Dubuffet, whereby the artist etches through a top layer of paint to reveal the underlying colour beneath, thus bringing to life the canvas, through texture and form, light and shade. To really appreciate Van Gindertael's works one has to look into, not merely at, the paintings, but to look at it again and again. From what at first glance appears as a random assembly of etched lines and squiggles, one begins to discern figures on the beach, more often reclining, arms and legs in motion, birds, animals, and the one definitive form - the letters of Van Gindertael, in quartered syllables, which are always an integral part of the painting. Is what one sees really there or simply a product of one's own imagination? What was the artist's intentions? The title perhaps hold a clue: Plage Bleue (Blue Beach), Jeux de Plage (Beach Games), Tempete de Sable (Sand Storm).
Van Gindertael's painting embody both the abstract and the figurative, with much of his work lying somewhere between the two. Although one may be tempted to compare his works with those of Dubuffet, or attempt a connection with the Abstract Expressionists of the 1940's and early 50's - among them Jackson Pollock and Paul Klee, to reduce Van Gindertael's art to the confines of this particular movement or that, is to do injustice to the richness, diverseness and originality of his oeuvre. Why this obsession with classification anyway?
Terms such Abstract Expressionism were merely coined by critics as a convenient means of defining and classifying many widely desperate styles under the guise of one coherent movement. As far as Van Gindertael's own view of his work is concerned, he is very much his own man. When asked about his art, he becomes very reticent: as he sees it, he puts 100% of himself into his paintings, and he leaves them to to speak for him. In this respect he would no doubt share the sentiments expressed by Dubuffet when he wrote: Painting is a language much more spontaneous than words, and much more direct than that of words; closer to crying out or dancing. Thus painting is a means of expressing our innermost voice, so much more expressive than words.