On the way to Omega

With the project “On the Way to Omega” Gerard Bijnens has – in his own words – delivered his masterpiece. It is indeed the result of 47 years producing art dedicated to the cosmos. However, this became only clear with the production of the work “Duel in Space” in 1987. Since then this cosmos, so inconceivably big and endless that it is as it were permanent, has become the centre of his creative, albeit constantly changing, efforts. Gerard Bijnens does so not only in paintings (mainly acrylic ones) but also as a sculptor in blue stone and marble, alternating both disciplines. It is an overall project, where painting and sculpting took place almost synchronic. What strikes us is that in the acrylic paintings the moving cosmos is prevailing, whereas in the sculptures a more static style is predominant. The ten sculptures representing the sun, the eight planets and dwarf planet Pluto are rationally brought into play. The fact is that the paintings run parallel with this presentation, though they are less defining and less illustrating. They are more playful, poetic, and more threatening too. In other words, they answer more to the idea that we have of the cosmos.

These paintings are created by an accumulation of diluted acrylic paints. This accumulation implies layers that do not stilt or become impermeable. On the contrary, they show their multilayeredness and transparency. They look like strings of nebulae, interstellar dust that, vaguely illuminated, evolve in the triptych from compact darkness to increasingly lighter colours. Does the cosmos become more transparent or is it our knowledge that makes it so? Indeed, the triptych appears as a masterpiece of an artist that has been fascinated all his life by the immenseness, the greatness, the beauty of this cosmos. To put it in a rhetoric way, the artist has appropriated the cosmos to himself. It has become an artistic space, inviting to commit himself to meditation.

In the triptych we see as it were a symphonic movement in which drama, passion and poetry are combined . In the ten free-standing paintings, however, this movement is evidently more vehement, compact and diversified. Colours are more diverse, outspoken, sometimes threatening, dreamy and inviting. Light is alternately sparse and then suddenly present in abundance. In short, he approaches the cosmos in full freedom and limitation. That’s because the artist is as free as a bird in his presentation, but at the same time limited by the (many) possibilities to create the cosmos on canvas. What prevails in this project is the exploration of a cosmic perception, which self-evidently meets artistic imperatives.

Gerard Bijnens combines the triptych with a series of ten sculptures, representing the sun, the eight planets and dwarf planet Pluto. To be noticed is that the (expected) round or oval form is replaced by a beamlike format, rendering it an heraldic character. This simple but ingenious design visualises and simultaneously abstacts the planets in an original way. It differs from the classic representation and derives its strength from both its compactness and the contrast between the blank black surface and the vertical and horizontal lines. Paul Dirac, British physicist and Nobel prize winner, once wrote: “The laws of nature must be expressed through excellent equations”. If this is true for science it certainly is for a work of art. Gerard Bijnens clearly managed in representing the cosmos theme in his own typical way and keeping it linked up to the scientific denotation.

Fernand Haerden