Edith
Dekyndt trained
at the workshop of Gabriel Belgeonne at ESAPV[1]where she was more interested in the physical
and chemical processes related to printing techniques than to engraving. In
1987, she was granted a scholarship, and stayed in Italy where she conducted
research on Pierro della Francesca and his relationship to geometry and light.
She won the Prix du Hainaut in 1990 and became a professor in 1997 at the Ecole
Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg (ESAD).
In 1999, she created the
co-op Universal Research of Subjectivity that she designed as an investigative
laboratory and which became an association for the promotion and diffusion of
contemporary art in 2004. That same year, the BPS22 organised her first major
monographic exhibition. Her works are part of numerous collections, in Belgium
and abroad, including that of MOMA (Museum Of Modern Art), New York.
Her first works used space as a field of investigation, in which
geometrical elements intervene, and where light plays a fundamental role. Edith
Dekyndt observes and highlights the processes of daily life and physical
phenomena, through a minimalist aesthetic. She reveals poetically what is
hardly perceptible, such as dust, moisture, magnetic particles, waves or static
electricity, constantly playing with the relationship between the microscopic
and the macroscopic. Her approach is close to the scientific realm, while
having a sensitive finality that avoids any dryness.
In
1995, Edith Dekyndt turned the Escaut[2] architectural workshop into a
laboratory in which she subjected a series of objects and materials to the
passage of time; their transformation expressing the inevitable aging of the
material that the video recording manages to capture. Edith Dekyndt uses video
as an extension of her sculptural research. The artist produces works in order
to offer the viewer a singular physical and mental experience, which is fully
integrated into the exhibition space[3].
[1] The ESAPV, Ecole
Supérieure des Arts plastiques et visuels, de Mons (BE) has been renamed ARTS²
in 2012.
It was
formerly the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
[2] Architects’ co-op founded by Olivier
Bastin in 1989.
[3] Regarding the artist’s career and
approach, see: Edith
Dekyndt. I Remember Earth, Bruxelles, Facteur Humain
Editions, 2009.
