Bart Baele
Confirming over the years an intense pictorial expression, painting and drawing give to Bart Baele a very wide emotional reach. Invoking his personal pantheon – Antonin Artaud, Edvard Munch, Vincent Van Gogh, James Ensor, Niko Pirosmani - Bart Baele evokes them as loud incantations, accentuating the tension between satire and drama, pamphlet and fable, that runs through his fascinating work. Reworked over months, even years, Bart Baele summons his inner torments and transcribes them as the most sensitive seismographer would do. These quotations amplify an emotional charge from which the viewer cannot escape. The theatricality of existence takes on its full dimension here. For it is indeed the theatre of life, whose main actors, coming from the artist’s life are often represented by the animal genre, which can take the form of birds (good and innocent) or wolfs (evil). And if these animals are far from the personifications of La Fontaine, here they symbolize as much human suffering as hypocrisy, and also and especially the hope that Bart Baele seems to hold in humanity.
BART BAELE
° Wetteren, 1969
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EXHIBITIONS
1991 twee voor Marcus Aurelius, hekkerstraat, Wetteren (solo)
1994 miserere, den bouw, Kalken (solo)
1997 zeven schilderijen, huize St-Jacobus, Gent (solo)
1999 BB/MDB, (duo met Mario De Brabandere), Gontrode
1999 drawings, den bouw, Kalken (solo)
2000 Over Fork Gallery, de witte zaal, St Lucas, Gent (curator)
2011 galerie William Wauters, Oosteeklo (solo)
2002 R.S.P.R.D.L., centrum voor ruimtelijke kunst, Lokeren (solo)
2003 Heilung eines kriegsverletzten, Campo Santo, Gent (solo)
2004 Galerij G.De Keulenaer, Gent (solo)
2004 Het hart, Museum Dr. Guislain, Gent (solo + group)
2005 Essay voor Laura Munch, den Bouw, Kalken (solo)
2007 Le peintre maudit, de halle, Geel (group)
2007 Ziek, tussen lichaam en geest, Museum Dr. Guislain, Gent (group)
2008 Racaille, den Bouw, Kalken (solo)
2008 Swarze milch der fruhe, (duo met Philippe Vandenberg), TH Gallery, Den Haag
2010 Loods 12, Wetteren; met uitgave 'de schande, de eenzaamheid, het schilderij' (solo)
2010 La philosophie des larmes, Galerie DIX291, Parijs (solo)
2010 Religion lepreux crapulé, Den bouw, Kalken (solo)
2011 hommage Marcel Proust, galerie Polaris, Parijs (group)
2011 Bart Baele elixir Guislain, oud rusthuis, Laarne (group)
2011 Espace de destin-Espèces de dessins, Centre R.A.C., Montbéliard (group)
2011 le Flamand Craquelé, galerie Polaris, Parijs (solo)
2012 Slaughterhouse closed, galerie Polaris, Parijs (solo)
2012 Frightening facts of..., loods 12, Wetteren (group)
2012 le suicide altruiste, Alice Day, Brussel (solo)
2013 the last crow, galerie Polaris, Parijs (solo)
2014 Weltinnenraum, Vishal, Den Haag (group)
2014 Enlightened Fountains, Jan Colle Gallery, Gent (group)
2014 Abstract boven, Quai des artistes, Gent (group)
2014 Souvenirs 1984/2014, den bouw, Kalken (group)
2014 Le Mur, La maison rouge, Parijs (group)
2014 Hoge horizon, Breughelland, stedelijk museum, Lier (group)
2014 the situation of the lamb, galerie Polaris, Paris (solo)
2015 Le Silence, gelerie Valerie Traan, Antwerpen (solo + group)
2015 Thomas' Liver, Villa de bank, Enschede (solo)
2016 Hommage Expo (laureaat), Bozar, Brussel (group)
2016 TWINTIG, de Voorkamer, Lier (group)
2016 Les noirs, Art lab, Gent (group)
2016 L'académie des larmes II, galerij Noella Baele, Wetteren (solo)
2016 IVIVIVIV, Voorkamer, Lier (group)
2016 tekeningen, 1990/2016, een overzicht, galerie William Wauters, Oosteeklo (solo)
2016 Art at the stationsstraat, 182, galerie Valerie Traan, Aalter/Antwerpen (group)
2016 Meninroad/Ypperstrasse, Ieper (group)
2016 Krew/Werk, galerie Foksal, Warschau (group)
2017 Between earth and heaven, huis de Lombard, Brugge (group)
2017 Fear in a handfull of dust, Marion de Cannière, Antwerpen (group)
2017 les Intentionnels, galerie Polaris, Paris (group)
2018 bad painter, galerie polaris, Paris (solo)
Bart Baele wordt vertegenwoordigd door Galerie Polaris (Parijs), werk in bezit van het museum Dr Guislain, Gent en
La maison Rouge, Parijs.