Gideon Kiefer

Gideon Kiefer

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Over just more than a decade, Gideon Kiefer (°1970, Belgium) proved himself to be a true master of drawing. In 2019, the artist turned over a new page, starting with a series of exquisite oil paintings on wood in the exhibition A throwback to ancient times, it is no coincidence. 

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 Throughout his oeuvre, Kiefer creates his own distinctive universe, filled with intimate and peculiar scenes, which are a symbiosis of reality and the imaginary, based on the artist’s memories and the distrust towards the accuracy of these memories. Although this personal aspect forms the leitmotif in his body of work, on a second level, his drawings and paintings consistently show great consciousness and criticism towards geo-politics and the current global ecological situation, which the artist preferably depicts in a more metaphorical manner. 

A more recent series closely follows A throwback to ancient times, drawing inspiration from baroque painters such as Rubens and Caravaggio or the Russian realist Ilja Repin, as he remembers them from browsing hisgrandfather's art books. Kiefer appropriates details that fascinate him, reinterprets them and provides them with new meanings - a process that reminds of the general functioning of one’s memory. 

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Although the artist paints according to classical oil painting techniques, he shuns traditional supports. In an often collage-like manner he creates multi-layered stories mainly on wooden boards. Dramatic hands, meticulously painted, are omnipresent, which has a lot to do with the artist’s fascination for their technical difficulties. Stuck in tense gestures, clutching and clinging to each other or grasping the rolling flesh of bare torsos, they’re part of the artist’s exemplary multi-layered stories. As in his previous work, Kiefer adds details such as small red rectangles or black dots referring to wounds or specific anecdotes; landscapes in lose brushstrokes allude to the small Belgian village where he grew up; handwritten texts reveal some of the often intriguing content hidden in each work while subtly sharing his concerns towards climate change and global warming. 

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Kiefer’s paintings seamlessly follow his oeuvre on paper; he continues to create his own unique microcosm, balancing between traditional and contemporary, intimate stories versus global criticism and moreover, reality against fiction.

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Redaction: Lien Craps