Exhibition Bart Somers

For Bart Somers (1958), working with metal is a continuous dialogue between strength and grace. With his forge hammer he models, with his cutting torch he paints. This is how he manages to transform the unruly Corten steel and high-gloss stainless steel into sculptures that look surprisingly light and graceful. His sculptures play with space and light, where the clean lines tell the story and all unnecessary details are deliberately omitted. What remains is a powerful abstraction, inviting the viewer's imagination to fill in the rest.

The cave paintings of Lascaux, more than 15,000 years old, fascinate him, as does the work of Spanish sculptor Carlos Mata. Yet Somers translates these influences into a language of form all his own: airy contours in steel, evoking animals and human figures without fully defining them. In his studio, Somers literally goes through fire for his materials. The bending, cutting, forging and mastering of metal is a battle he faces again and again, but one does not experience this in the final sculptures.

The robust raw materials seem almost soft, as if they have been put down with brushstrokes. The result is an oeuvre full of contrasts: sturdy and yet elegant, exuberant and simultaneously subdued. Sculptures that show that even the hardest metal can arouse emotions.