Ludo Van Hees was a co-founder of the art stream at the Sint-Jozefscollege Aarschot. Until his retirement he was a teacher there and a gifted organiser. Alongside his teaching he was a visual artist. In his paintings he explored the possibilities of abstraction, including in monochrome works, in works that could be read recto/verso, or by bringing out the texture of the canvas as an autonomous surface.
Founder of the Annual Ludo Van Hees Prize
The Poetry of Reduction
The limitation of means and radical reduction promote a concentration on the essence of things. This also moves the encounter between viewer and object more strongly into the centre. Free of illusionistic and metaphorical messages, the works are not meant to represent, but rather to exist. Minimalism, consistency and seriality characterise the positions gathered here. Self-imposed limitations release an astonishing potential. Thus the concept of painting only in squares and only in white produces a surprising multitude of variations and nuances. – Robert Ryman
the earth
that lends me its firm footing
and the sky its room to breathe
between them I stretch my canvases
Ludo Van Hees
Text by Lore Van Hees on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition at CC Gasthuis, 7-30 March 2003
Ludo Van Hees has exhibited several times in Aarschot. Today he is given space to show earlier and recent work. An important driving force of his painting is the investigation of the traditional formal categories of painting, which the artist experiences as creatively limiting. Central here is the relationship between canvas and surrounding space, and with the painting as an object. Until the late nineties this intense investigation of the foundations of painting is the common thread running through the painting of Ludo Van Hees.
Gradually his paintings evolve into free-standing objects, firmly riveted in solid ground, terra firma, able to confront their surroundings: the space and the viewer. A questioning of painting from within painting itself.
With the turn of the century the paintings undergo a metamorphosis. Although they reconcile themselves again with the wall, they invite this architectural boundary to renounce its task as a limit and to join in the fleeting, airy play of clouds and air.
Today Ludo Van Hees again asks the fundamental questions that already influenced his work earlier. He examines the canvas anew as a surface that, through a new treatment of its skin, claims its own fixed place on the wall. In this way the two poles of his painting are brought together: earth and air, matter and spirit have found their equal in each other. The works are exhibited in the restored spaces that once housed the Grey Sisters of Aarschot. Through the tactile treatment and covering of the painted surface with jute, a coarse fabric like a monk’s habit, not only the canvas but also the former convent space is brought to life. This animation of canvas and space continues to resonate with the viewer as a tangible reflection on the meaning and meaninglessness of painting. A provisional end point of an intense quest.
video maker: Rik Terlyn, Kunstkoppen is a project of CC Het Gasthuis and IGCS.