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COEMAN Wilfried
Born in Kortrijk on 2.1.1939
Died in Kortrijk on 13.10.2021
Abstract expressionist painter
Graphic
Arts at the Academy of Menen
Listings and references: :
"Ministry Flemish Community, Culture Administration,
Department Visual Arts and Museums 2003"Brussel.
"De Belgische Beeldende Kunstenaars uit de 19e
en 20ste eeuw" P.Piron. Ed. Art in
Belgium. Brussel.
"Kunstenaars en Galerijen. 1997" Uitg. S.I. Belgium.
"Wie is wie in Vlaanderen 2002" BRD
"Spectraal 1982" Gent.
Second price in the “Price for landscape Michel Depypere - Kuurne 2006
Selection Price Plastic Arts Harelbeke (B) 2006
Selection “Kunst te Kortrijk” - 2004
Selection “Price for
landscape Michel Depypere - Kuurne 1981-‘83-‘85.
Selection "KUNST IN HUIS" (Ministry of Flemish Culture)
Collection ART FORUM - Antwerp
Collection "ARCADJA" Mercier & Cie- Lille (F)
Exhibitions :
Individual:
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UZ
Gasthuisberg – Leuven – 2006
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Artothèque – Saint Cloud (Paris) -
2006
-
VC
Mozaïek - Kortrijk - 2005
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John Galt Art Gallery –
Kortrijk - 2004
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FORTIS – Kortrijk - 2003
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Galerie Triangle - Florenville
- 1999
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Galerie M.C.F. - Brussels - 1994
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A.S.L.K. - Gent - 1991
Collective:
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Art Track - Gent - 2015
-
Centre culturel Saint-Cloud
(Paris) – 2005
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Galerij
Atmosfera Heule (Kortrijk) - 2004
-
Kunst te
Kortrijk (Cultural Centre) - 2003
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Atelier
Vanmeenen - Harelbeke - 2002
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Athena Art
Gallery - Kortrijk - 1993
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Galerie du Crédit Général -
Brussels - 1992
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J.M. Taquet Art Gallery -
Brussels - 1991
Introductions and
reviews:
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J.
DE WINTER - Kortrijk - 2005
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EENHOORN - BRT1- Freya Torfs
- 1991
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P. BOSSUYT - Gent - 1991
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M.CALLENS -
Kortrijk - 1988
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SPECTRAAL -
Gent - 1982
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B. DEWILDE -
Kortrijk - 1980
The
work:
Like with many painters of the
Young Belgian Art of Painting, by whom he was clearly influenced, the
work of Wilfried Coeman developed from expressionism to a pure abstract
design. Starting from the landscape he comes to abstraction by dividing
the fields.
The landscape remains recognisable in a lot of his recent work, but it
is more a pretence of the creation of a work. Nevertheless this way of
coming into existence of a work is not present everywhere because the
intuitive approach gets the upper hand. One also often finds the
suggestion of a human presence there.
Parallel, an emotional, organic as well as a geometrical order develops.
Actually Wilfried
Coeman constructs a work where the pure pictorial elements dominate, like
the balance, the structure, the rhythm and the colour, finally finding a
touching point on the limit between the simplicity and the more expressive
design.
Criticism:
"Although the used elements of
form can not be identified with reality, we can not actually call
Wilfried Coeman an abstract painter. Often we still sense figurative
points of departure, a base that houses in the real, but that loses
everything anecdotal during its growth and the ripening of the process
of creation, till eventually it is merely itself as painting.
His work can be considered as an area where interferences originate
between abstract and figurative. Figurative elements of landscape remain
to be found in the result. In a lot of works we sense the air. There is
usually a kind of skyline in his compositions.
His elements reduced to blocks or geometrical areas can be houses,
fields, rocks or persons.
Coeman is someone who wields paint with a masterly
feel of harmonising tonalities, someone who knows how to dose the line and
the field utterly well-balanced in function of the overall picture;
someone who surprisingly spontaneously reconciles rhythm and balance,
someone who also knows how to explore paint as matter and uses different
ways of application side by side making them an expressive
whole."
(Bert DEWILDE.)
Ref. :” Kunstenaars en Galerijen.” 1997. Uitg. S.I. Belgium. Brussel.
Commentary
of the jury “Award of the Landscape Michel
Depypere 2006”
The slight colour
variations,carrefully drawn with tiny strokes of the brush, are obviousy
typical for the work of Wilfried Coeman.
The result
is a harmonious composition, referring to different kinds of abstracted
landscapes.
Testimonies by the
artist:
"To me the painting is a
visually independent closed area with its own reality.
It has its own existence with its own balance and its own gravity. It is
independent, and it owes its right of existence to this independence.
One has to be able to approach a painting from an intuitive experience
that precedes the consciousness. This also implies that one has to be
open for a reality that is not recognisable just like that, and which
escapes a scientific or analytical point of view.
As a painter I first of all, or exclusively, express
myself with my feelings and my intuition."
Catalogue 'Spectraal'
Gent- 1982.
"Painting as a lonely employment
and a very personal experience.
To me painting is at first looking for a personal expression at that
moment, according to my feeling and intuition.
This expresses itself in the creation of a personal way of
representation in the experience and the intuitive feeling of the
pictorial field:
The exploring in the division of the field, the bringing into existence
of compositions with only pictorial elements, the creation of rhythmics
that start to belong to the essence of the work. It becomes an
independent, closed area with its own reality.
And this reality, which the painting is, becomes a suggestive testimony
of the elusiveness of everything that surrounds us, and questions the
dimension of time and space.
And always going on because it is time and again a challenge and every
time it is starting again.
But the why?"
Catalogue 'Galerie
du Crédit Général' Brussels-1992.
My so-called abstract landscapes
and compositions are not determined by natural, external elements. It is
only the sky-line and the feel of a sky that turn it into a landscape.
It is an evocation of the world through these recognisable elements of
the landscape. It boarders between the real which is now, and the
timelessness.
What I try to achieve in my work is the start of an inner process by
experiencing the pictorial field. This is an invitation to the
experience of time and space, the experience of the infinity of space
and of the timelessness.
It is
also, in the closed independent domain which a painting is, the experience
of the unity of mind and matter.
Art has a lot to do with the
urge of living: it is a creating force.
It is a way of
surviving: placing a creative force
face to
face with death, placing consciousness face to face with the emptiness.
The
reason why I paint is perhaps the necessity to be comforted or saved by
art: it gives meaning, fills up an emptiness. Or rather expressing the
emptiness which arises because we as human beings are conscious of the
elusiveness of our existence compared with time and
space.
That is
what my work is about.
Then it is a question of feeling and intuition.
When you paint you don't have to think anymore, you are not supposed to
think anymore. It is the atmosphere which is created by the work that
comes on the first place.
My work is actually an introvert, meditative form of art.
I do not wish to bring a message or story; or connect it with a
political, social or philosophical meaning. That is also where my
allergy for titles comes from.
The art of painting should do with the matter
and the values emanating from it, like the shape, colour, tone value,
rhythm and balance. Also the carrier and the paint as matter play their
role.
It might
sound ponderous, but it is not: it is definitely not intended. There is
as much pleasure involved: it is as much a game: having fun with the
creative game of painting is an exceptional perception.
Still, it also stays a
battle, like every game, a fight to control the matter in order to get to
an expression of the feeling which is always the starting
point.
But a
painter should be left to paint, and his work should be viewed with an
open eye, to see and to discover. You have to be able to retain an
innocence and even naivety to be able to watch and see, and live. We
also listen to music like this. We do not immediately analyse, because
then we analyse it until it is broken.
Everything which is valuable, especially in art, is a matter of feeling.
Most important is that
the things are real, and we feel this. That is, if we do not seclude
ourselves from a form of expression which transcends reality and gives a
dimension of transcendence to the things and to our
senses.
Wilfried
COEMAN
25.03.03.
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