Michiel Ceulers : Comment Tuer L'amant de Sa Femme

Comment Tuer L'amant de Sa Femme Quand on a Été Élevé Comme Moi Dans la Tradition.The title of Michiel Ceulers' (b. 1986, Waregem) exhibition leaves no room for doubt: Ceulers' practice asserts its place in the long tradition of painting but does so by questioning both that tradition and the artist's relationship to it. Much like the character in Jacques Brel's song, from which the exhibition takes its title, the artist was trained in classical painting. At the same time, he wants to escape the pressures of the medium's rich history.

The works shown by Michiel Ceulers at De Garage are not answers, but hypotheses in which diverse influences, materials and stylistic features meet. The paintings are always self-contained objects. They use motifs to exist, to come into being, but often immediately puncture the illusion of representation. The viewer's gaze is thus thrown back on itself. Rather than compelling a single reading, the often playful titles given to these works situate the medium within the broader meanings of both higher and lower culture.

Although Ceulers is primarily known for his abstract paintings, De Garage presents a selection from the past fifteen years of his work. This exhibition shows a trajectory from figurative to abstract and back again, in which the constantly recurring intention to renew the medium forms the core of his oeuvre.

On the occasion of this exhibition, Stockmans Art Books is issuing a publication for the first time presenting an overview of the already considerable career of this still-young artist.