BIOGRAPHY
First of all, some biographical data. Koen Nelissen was born in 1952 in Mortsel in an artistic family with a wide range of interests: film, music, literature and visual arts. His first art passion was music. He studied the violin at the end of the sixties - beginning of the seventies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Antwerp, then at the Conservatory of Ghent, after which he returned to Antwerp to study with the famous Russian violinist Philippe Hirschhorn. But in the end he did not opt for a professional career in music.
The family came first. His imagination and creativity brought him to the visual arts by designing toys and game programmes for a television production house. In painting and sculpture he became passionate self-taught, visiting numerous museums and practising as possessed.
After about 15 years we can already look back on a diversified oeuvre, which I would like to summarize under the name Signs in matter These signs are sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative and they are expressed in various techniques.
The family came first. His imagination and creativity brought him to the visual arts by designing toys and game programmes for a television production house. In painting and sculpture he became passionate self-taught, visiting numerous museums and practising as possessed.
After about 15 years we can already look back on a diversified oeuvre, which I would like to summarize under the name Signs in matter These signs are sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative and they are expressed in various techniques.
ERNEST VAN BUYNDER Honorary President MuHKA
Honorary President MuHKA
Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
EGLOMISE
First of all, the églomisé or rear glass painting, an 18th-century painting technique. Within art in Flanders, there is the groundbreaking églomise work by Floris Jespers (Borgerhout 1889 - Antwerp 1965) in a poetic expressionist style. Closer to us, Bruno Vekemans (Antwerp 1952 - Brasschaat 2019) has also manifested himself as a talented back glass painter, but in a realistic style, recognisable and yet alienating.
Since 2012 Koen Nelissen has been creating églomisés that are innovative in both content and technique. Technically he used acrylic and spray paint and introduced plexiglass as a carrier. Formally there is a series of beautiful pure abstract works, sometimes informal, lyrical abstract, sometimes in the spirit of the so-called colorfield painting, a subdirection of constructivism, where vertical or horizontal denominations delimit colour strips. The American Barnett Newman (New York 1905 - New York 1970) has shaped this direction. In this difficult technique, Koen Nelissen creates very beautiful abstract work.
It is to use the terms of Umberto Eco from his art philosophical work “Opera Aperta”, “open works of art”, to which the viewer can give his own interpretation. And according to Eco, they can or rather should be diverse, in order to describe a good work of art. For me, these abstract églomisés by Koen Nelissen are allegories of the universe, an investigation of the “absolute image”, of metaphysical art.
Also special are the abstract églomisés, which lie between abstraction and figuration. I am thinking here of the églomisés which, in addition to abstract elements, also have a physical, sometimes architectural structure. And then there are the figurative images in their own realistic style, with numerous references to the music. In short, Koen Nelissen has written a personal new chapter in églomisé art in Flanders.
Since 2012 Koen Nelissen has been creating églomisés that are innovative in both content and technique. Technically he used acrylic and spray paint and introduced plexiglass as a carrier. Formally there is a series of beautiful pure abstract works, sometimes informal, lyrical abstract, sometimes in the spirit of the so-called colorfield painting, a subdirection of constructivism, where vertical or horizontal denominations delimit colour strips. The American Barnett Newman (New York 1905 - New York 1970) has shaped this direction. In this difficult technique, Koen Nelissen creates very beautiful abstract work.
It is to use the terms of Umberto Eco from his art philosophical work “Opera Aperta”, “open works of art”, to which the viewer can give his own interpretation. And according to Eco, they can or rather should be diverse, in order to describe a good work of art. For me, these abstract églomisés by Koen Nelissen are allegories of the universe, an investigation of the “absolute image”, of metaphysical art.
Also special are the abstract églomisés, which lie between abstraction and figuration. I am thinking here of the églomisés which, in addition to abstract elements, also have a physical, sometimes architectural structure. And then there are the figurative images in their own realistic style, with numerous references to the music. In short, Koen Nelissen has written a personal new chapter in églomisé art in Flanders.
PAINTINGS &
MIXED MEDIA
MIXED MEDIA
Since the eighties of last century, painting has been on the rise worldwide after the hegemony of minimal and conceptual art. Koen Nelissen’s paintings fit perfectly into this renouveau. They follow almost the same pattern as his églomisés. He works with oil, acrylic, lacquer and spray paint and glue on canvas, panel or photo as carrier. And beautiful and personal abstract, abstract and purely figurative works appear.
Here, however, I would like to establish a link with material painting, in particular the work of the Catalan Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona 1923-2012) and the Italian Alberto Burri (Città di Castello 1915 - Beaulieu-sur-Mer 1995). Tàpies worked with sand, canvas, straw and rope in protest against academic painting and Burri resorted to what was available immediately after the Second World War: rags, jute and pitch, due to a lack of calibrated painting material. Koen Nelissen works with polymisé, a preparation of his own, and sometimes integrates lead, clothing and various materials into the work, in addition to types of paint.
A statement by Tàpies can also apply to Koen Nelissen’s oeuvre: “the highest wisdom assumes the humblest body”. And while Tàpies, through his work, made a fist at the Franco regime and Burri defended post-war freedom, Koen Nelissen’s work is also a plea for a socially, politically and above all ecologically better world.
Here, however, I would like to establish a link with material painting, in particular the work of the Catalan Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona 1923-2012) and the Italian Alberto Burri (Città di Castello 1915 - Beaulieu-sur-Mer 1995). Tàpies worked with sand, canvas, straw and rope in protest against academic painting and Burri resorted to what was available immediately after the Second World War: rags, jute and pitch, due to a lack of calibrated painting material. Koen Nelissen works with polymisé, a preparation of his own, and sometimes integrates lead, clothing and various materials into the work, in addition to types of paint.
A statement by Tàpies can also apply to Koen Nelissen’s oeuvre: “the highest wisdom assumes the humblest body”. And while Tàpies, through his work, made a fist at the Franco regime and Burri defended post-war freedom, Koen Nelissen’s work is also a plea for a socially, politically and above all ecologically better world.
SCULPTURES & INSTALLATIONS
Koen Nelissen creates autonomous images with all kinds of materials: abstract and abstracting signs. But he also creates installations. The 28 works were exhibited in the Rivierenhof Park in Deurne 2020 and 2021. In the installations, he mainly uses a range of recycled materials. The installations refer to current social themes, originally expressed by the artist in terms of respect, recycling, reinvent, reconsider, reintegrate, reconnect, remember, rewind, reeroot, regroup, repair, ...
Geology was also a central theme of the so-called Arte Povera artists, a group that originated in the 1970s, and of which my good friend Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella 1933) is one of the founders. The Arte Povera artists used mostly organic and simple materials (earth, stones, vegetation, ...), energy sources (water, fire, ...). They elevate the simplest things to the rank of art. And Koen Nelissen also does that defiantly. The whole of his project in Rivierenhof bears witness to this. In the same spirit, he created a boat out of rusted iron, referring to the refugee problems that grab him. The mummies in plaster are also a plea for greater interhumanity. And the church sculpture (wooden crosses on a metal frame) makes us think about meaning. And I could go on like this.
Geology was also a central theme of the so-called Arte Povera artists, a group that originated in the 1970s, and of which my good friend Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella 1933) is one of the founders. The Arte Povera artists used mostly organic and simple materials (earth, stones, vegetation, ...), energy sources (water, fire, ...). They elevate the simplest things to the rank of art. And Koen Nelissen also does that defiantly. The whole of his project in Rivierenhof bears witness to this. In the same spirit, he created a boat out of rusted iron, referring to the refugee problems that grab him. The mummies in plaster are also a plea for greater interhumanity. And the church sculpture (wooden crosses on a metal frame) makes us think about meaning. And I could go on like this.
PERFORMANCES
The Performance is a very contemporary form of expression, in which the artist places himself on stage. Sometimes only once, but now more and more on stage. Koen Nelissen’s performances are a separate chapter, but still refer to the same social points of interest and the band images art - music.
CODA
In approaching his work, I have experienced that the musical training of Koen Nelissen continues. He composes experimental music and often converts it into images. Music inspires his visual work and vice versa.
Of course he is not alone in this cross-pollination. In the artist group G58 Hessenhuis there were numerous double talents. Just two examples. The sculptor Camiel Van Breedam (Boom 1936) and the painter Cel Overberghe (Deurne 1937) are both still active jazz musicians. And Koen Nelissen, just like Cel Overberghe, also writes poems.
Finally a thought of Tàpies.“The value of an artist is the result of the complex sum of ideas, the emotions he can communicate through his works. And his paintings, his sculptures or even his poems, all ‘partial’ works, are experienced much deeper and better understood in the perspective of his complex ensemble”.
And Koen Nelissen fits perfectly into this statement. With his abstract, figurative églomisés and paintings, with his autonomous sculptures and installations, with his performances and poems, with his experimental music, Koen Nelissen as an artist has developed his own voice, his own personality.
Of course he is not alone in this cross-pollination. In the artist group G58 Hessenhuis there were numerous double talents. Just two examples. The sculptor Camiel Van Breedam (Boom 1936) and the painter Cel Overberghe (Deurne 1937) are both still active jazz musicians. And Koen Nelissen, just like Cel Overberghe, also writes poems.
Finally a thought of Tàpies.“The value of an artist is the result of the complex sum of ideas, the emotions he can communicate through his works. And his paintings, his sculptures or even his poems, all ‘partial’ works, are experienced much deeper and better understood in the perspective of his complex ensemble”.
And Koen Nelissen fits perfectly into this statement. With his abstract, figurative églomisés and paintings, with his autonomous sculptures and installations, with his performances and poems, with his experimental music, Koen Nelissen as an artist has developed his own voice, his own personality.