Luc Hamblok the artist

Even from his early childhood he explored reality with pens, pencils and paper. He remains fascinated observing and expressing in a surrealistic way almost everything in between insects and cathedrals. Strange characters in a personal iconography form art of his universe. His favorite ingredients are skulls, bones and recycling materials. In combination with ceramics they get a second life in a magic realistic atmosphere with affinity for gothic. He finds curiosities on attics and antique markets, an inexhaustible source of rarities that fed the fantasy of the artist. They are born again as an improved, poetic creation.

Before 2007 he qualified himself in different disciplines: drawing, oil painting, etching, woodcutting, and woodturning, ceramics, modelbuilding, some airbrush and encaustic in sometimes long, sometimes brief courses. All this has culminated since 2007 in his actual work: he finally found his destination : assemblage and mixed media. He uses all kinds of materials from skulls of cats, deer, bucks, beachcomber items, bicycle brakes, lead, plumes … All these materials are stocked in stacks and very accurately he can locate them. If there is a missing link, he elaborates that item with ceramics achieving this way a coherent assemblage. Again and again there must be thought about the frame and the dismounting of the artwork. Even if its fragile, the construction must be transportable in a compact way. That is the difficult challenge.

The skin of the construction: Sometimes the artist uses colored sand on a glue base or acrylics on ceramics, uses wax instead of enamel. As an alchemist he loves a touch of gold leaf here and there. After careful consideration he selects materials, assembles them until birth comes, this in contrast with conceptual art. He is getting his inspiration from meticulously collected books, ethnography, and the mythology of many cultures he visited in his grand tours from Peru to Cambodia.

Amongst his idols: Jeroen Bosch, Dali and other surrealists. He has also a great affinity to the middle ages and gothic art.