In search of the right wave in time and space

Interview with Louise Delanghe

"If painting is the sea, I want to be the ultimate surfer." Every decision and consideration must be visible to Belgian artist Louise Delanghe (BE, 1994), as she believes that therein lies the poetry of a work of art. 

Delanghe is considered a great painting talent, and in her work, she leaps from genre to genre: from full-length portraits to work on cardboard and from classical nudes to textual work. Pizza Gallery is presenting an overview at Art Rotterdam of the work Delanghe has created so far, in addition to work from her newest series, Weeping Wham, which she describes as “the elusive beauty of the cherry on an overly sweet whipped cream cake.”

Congratulations on your presentation at Art Rotterdam! What can we expect?
Thank you! Color is the workhorse in my art, an obsession, joy and tribulation all at the same time. It is the binding agent that connects the layers of stories and characters in my paintings. At Art Rotterdam, I want to emphasise this with an eclectic mix from different periods in my journey. For many visitors, it will be their first encounter with my work and my intention is to create an exciting ‘totality’ at the fair.

Is it a logical continuation of Boulevard Angel, your exhibition earlier this year at Pizza Gallery, or have you started a new project?
I am mostly showing recent work. The series embodies a succession of standing figures and busts with a penetrating yet tender gaze. Some time ago, a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau that I found online, entitled The Little Shepherdess, really caught my eye. In addition to his less interesting biblical scenes, he also devoted a lifetime to painting female figures, all with a certain aura about them, with an extraordinarily vulnerable, romantic, contemplative, melancholic and sometimes spellbinding expression. A kind of rom-com avant la lettre, a feeling that sometimes overcomes me in everyday life. It moved me. The Little Shepherdesswas the torch that brought a whole range of other examples to light, resulting in a new series of paintings entitled Weeping Wham. The elusive beauty of the cherry on an overly too sweet whipped cream cake may best describe what the viewer can expect to see. I hope my work evokes a certain witty fragility people can identify with.

For Boulevard Angel, you created smaller paintings on reclaimed wood. Why did you want to use reclaimed wood and is experimenting with different mediums something you enjoy?
The paintings in the Boulevard Angel show were created in three different places in Southern France. Painting in the open air was a revelation for me. As a child, I lived near Nuenen, the village where Vincent van Gogh painted his famous Potato Eaters. Vincent was my first encounter with painting, so it was particularly special to work in the region around Arles and follow in his southern footsteps. Nature makes you think and act differently. It didn't feel right to buy prefab canvases. The medium had to be something with a past. I found a dealer in Saint-Andiol, a rather rough type. He bought lots in India, the contents of which were always a gamble. Some of them were handmade furniture, objects and curiosities with a colonial past, and the rest were wood from demolished dilapidated buildings, some with beautifully hand-painted motifs. The pieces of wood were selected based on the size of my easel and their weight, as everything had to be carried with me outdoors. After a bit of negotiation, cash in hand and being a bit taken advantage of, I was on my way.

My thoughts often went to all the impressionists who painted outdoors. You are at the mercy of the weather, especially the mistral wind that sweeps through the landscape in this region, which determined the direction of my work several times in an amusing way. I had to paint faster and differently than in a studio, in a single motion like a snapshot. Coincidence brought me to the medium – or vice versa, as is usually the case.

Looking at your Instagram account, your work seems to go in all directions, from full-length portraits to work on cardboard and from classical nudes to textual work. Do you think there is a common thread in your work?
I suspect that such switching is rooted in my character, a ‘hopper‘ as they say. I become restless if I follow the same path visually and verbally for too long, a healthy dose of chaos then takes over me when I'm working. If painting is the sea, I want to be the ultimate surfer, always looking for the right wave in time and space. I want every gesture and moment of decision to be palpable in my paintings.

Why is that important to you?
It is a feeling I am also looking for when I stand in front of a work of art, an inextricable finishing touch that makes an image unique and where I believe the poetry lies.

You are now 29 and still at the beginning of your career. What do you hope to achieve in the next five years?
I am convinced that if you do something with passion, things will always cross your path at the right time. Over the next five years, I want to mainly continue to follow my own course, wherever the wind may blow it.

Written by Wouter van den Eijkel