Koen van den Broek
° 1973
Lives in Schilde (BE), born in Bree (BE).
In his paintings, Koen Van den Broek investigates the human experience of the environment. His paintings are readily recognizable. They are descriptions of the landscape, urban architecture, constructions or details thereof. His works show traces of human presence: circus tents, highways, bridges, sewers, pipes, fragments of houses or cars, sidewalk curbs… His personal collection of photographs, snapshots that he takes on his countless journeys, are his artistic points of departure. Koen Van den Broek opts for unsightly motifs, fragments that are recurrent in any town. The artist seeks out anonymity, the general rather than the specific. The oeuvre of Koen Van den Broek consists of painted versions of his snapshots. The relationship vis-à-vis photography is essential to his work. Transformation and variation with respect to the original photographic shot is crucial. Playfulness, diversity and duality – rigid delineation versus wild brush strokes, depth versus surface – are all characteristic of his work. Koen Van den Broek questions the viewing schemes of photography. His paintings are anti-images, reactions against the recordings of a piece of apparatus: the camera. His painterly focus is paint, colours’ spatial effect and the reduction of motifs to their most naked form. His paintings show fragmentation and randomness, in contrast to the controlling and the summarizing effect that photography brings. Boundaries dominate his work: both in investigating the frontiers of the painting as surface, as in his preference for boundary-related motifs: gutters, bridges, corners of buildings… Koen Van den Broek paints the void, the pause, just the moment when all is still. His images seem to be holding their breath: they show the instant when something has just happened, or is just about to happen.
>Koen van den Broek, Twin Towers, 1999.Painting, oil on canvas, 90 x 135 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Orange Border, 2001.Painting, oil, canvas, 165 x 110 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, 190 # 1, 2004.Painting, oil, canvas, 100 x 150 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, 190 # 2, 2004.Painting, oil, canvas, 100 x 150 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Green Crack, 2005.Painting.
>Koen van den Broek, Smoke Screen, 2005.Painting, oil on canvas, 210 x 140 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Trona, 2006.Painting, oil on canvas, 158 x 154 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Jef Lambrecht, Overschot Koen & Jef, 2007.Drawing, paper, pencil, 17 x 20.
>Koen van den Broek, Untitled, 2009.Drawing, paper, 43 x 35.5 cm .
>Koen van den Broek, Madonna, 2010.Film, oil on canvas, 93.5 x 85.5 cm .
>Koen van den Broek, Liberty #1, 2012.Painting, oil on canvas, 180 x 120 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Louis Kahn, 2014.Painting, oil on canvas, 165 x 110 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Switch, 2015.Painting, oil on canvas, 60.5 x 90 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Viaduct, 2015.Drawing, paper, 23.9 x 32.1 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Crack, Royal Academy London, 2015.Drawing, paper, 32.1 x 47.9 cm .
>Koen van den Broek, Die Zauberflöte, 2015.Painting, oil on canvas, 120 x 80 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Agrippina, 2015.Painting, oil on canvas, 120 x 180 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Makropoulos, 2015.Painting, oil on canvas, 115 x 88 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Sunset, 2015.Painting, oil on canvas, 120 x 150 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Requiem, 2015.Painting, oil on canvas, 210 x 140 cm.
>Koen van den Broek, Borderline, 2016.Painting, oil on canvas, 135 x 90 cm.
Exhibitions & Ensembles
> Exhibition: Borderline. 03 September 2016 - 30 September 2016.
> Exhibition: ENCLOSED. 21 May 2021 - 03 October 2021.
> Exhibition: EXTRA MUROS: MASTERPIECES AT MAS: Five centuries of images in Antwerp. 17 May 2011 - 30 December 2012.
> Exhibition: EXTRA MUROS: Visite Genk - Genkenaren kiezen kunst. 02 July 2014 - 31 August 2014.
> Exhibition: EXTRA MUROS: Visite Herzele – Beyond words. 03 April 2015 - 03 May 2015.
> Exhibition: Salon de Peinture. 17 January 2019 - 31 March 2019.
> Exhibition: The Collection. 28 April 2017 - 31 December 2021.
> Exhibition: The collection XXVII – East of 4°24'. 03 March 2011 - 21 August 2011.
> Exhibition: The collection XXXIII – The Collection as a Character. 07 June 2013 - 22 September 2013.
> Exhibition: Urgent Conversations Athens - Antwerp. 31 October 2016 - 05 February 2017.
> Ensemble: Aanwinsten 2013 [Acquisitions 2013].
> Ensemble: Aanwinsten 2016 [Acquisitions 2016].
> Ensemble: Belgische kunst [Belgian Art].
> Ensemble: Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap.
> Ensemble: ESTATE JEF LAMBRECHT.
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> Ensemble: M HKA_DEFAULT_WORKS.
> Ensemble: NUCLEUS.
> Ensemble: Original Imaginaire.
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> Ensemble: Secular Devotion.
> Ensemble: Teken-ing - JL.
> Ensemble: The Collection.
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> Ensemble: Virgin and Child with Seraphim and Cherubim.