THE ARTIST

Viviane Brickmanne

I ask myself: Is a work of art the product of its author’s mind or perhaps just the reflection of an incomprehensible dream of beauty? I always look forward to transforming the object in order to reveal its unexplored depths. My classic and literary academic training is reflected in my first figurative sculptures. The Mutants series portrays stylized young girls who unsuccessfully attempt to escape the earth and reach an impossible freedom, in accordance with W. Blake’s definition: “Flight is the world’s liberty…” I continued to develop winged figures and later on more abstract, vertical pieces, always trying to express a poetic vision of space through ascending lines that suggest flight. Decaying nature often inspires me. I pick up decomposing plant elements in order to capture the  traces of passing time caused by wind, rain, soil or the human hand. I incorporate them into my working process so that they lose their vulnerability and become durable. All decomposition halts and a new sense of beauty appears that is different, unexpected. I have begun a new line of investigation in bricks, a construction element that I transform to give it a new significance and appearance. At times, I introduce leaves or pomegranates into the brick to create a dialogue between an architectural element which is rectangular and masculine and the plant, round and feminine. The pomegranate is a sensual element and it breaks the linear structure of the brick. Lately I am working with state-of-the-art technologies and using new materials more adapted to the idea I want to develop, considering the brick as a metaphor of the vulnerability and fragility of our lives. Here the bricks reflect emotions,  feelings, even suffering. I cast my works principally in bronze and aluminium.

ARTISTIC TRAINING

  • Atrium, academy of drawing and painting

  • Brita Prinz, serigraphy workshop (silk screen painting)

  • Gilding  and polychromy

  • Modeling, School of ceramics, “Escuela de Cerámica de la Moncloa” Madrid.

CV

  • Belgian. Resident in Spain.

  • Liberal Arts graduate from the University of Louvain (Belgium)

  • Deputy member of the Cultural Foundation Carlos de Amberes (Madrid)

Additional video: Interview at Canal 24h: https://youtu.be/t_sqRB0dg_E

Studio: Torrelodones (Madrid)

Sculptural career

EXHIBITIONS