Jan De Vliegher: A tribute to painting

In Jan De Vliegher’s work, all genres and themes – portrait, landscape, marine art, townscape, architecture, interior and still life – are successively considered in the form of series. Yet you soon realize it is not about the subjects, but rather a pretext for painting.

Jan De Vliegher demonstrates the pleasure of viewing and shows us how he brings matter to life. As a viewer, you participate in the painter’s passion. You pay so much attention to the sensual materiality and the mastery of colour that the theme virtually disappears.

In the case of the series of still lives for Davos, Jan De Vliegher used six different themes on ceramic plates from different cultures as his starting point: Imari porcelain from Japan, Ming porcelain from China, Iznik ceramics from Turkey, Sèvres ceramics from France, Imperial court ceramics from Austria and maiolica from Italy.

The idea of this series is about communication between different cultures through a universal artistic language and similar artistic content (composition, beauty and abstraction) rather than subject matter.

Jan De Vliegher is a painter. Holding his brush in what seems a distinctly light and loose manner, he applies the paint with skilful accuracy, bending every stroke to match his intentions. De Vliegher uses photographic imagery as a starting point in his work. However, the paintings are never the result of a wish to imitate or mimic reality. In De Vliegher’s work, reality seems as important as unavoidable, and an obvious source of inspiration.