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There are few contemporary artists who make the subconscious effect of images as tangible as Patrick Ceyssens. In his artistic doctoral research, he seeks traces in images that remain unnoticed at first glance. He refutes well-known connections and ignites subcutaneous trajectories through processed paintings and photographs, theatrical video projects and image installations in which different media merge.
Two themes intertwine in his oeuvre. On the one hand, there is the theme of memory and its deceptive enchantment. He often uses amateurish photographs or image recordings as ‘objets trouvés’: neglected pieces but emotionally charged with daily culture that often capture poetic elements of reality precisely in their imperfection and open-mindedness. On the other hand, his work doesn’t just lose itself in melancholy and romance because he always causes a disturbance or a break. Like when he projects film images on a painted canvas, or on symbolically charged spaces that are already projection screens of the imagination. The effect of the image can no longer be separated from memory: ‘Our mind is the only canvas’ – as one of his titles reads.
So Patrick Ceyssens is not only a visual artist but also an admirer of the wonderful world of our brain in which perception, memory, cognition, emotion and their interaction play a leading role.
dr.Patrick Ceyssens, PhD, is coordinator of the research group ‘Frame’ and associate professor Image Analysis.
MAD-Research
