Dries Boutsen

Seven years ago, I started making collages from materials I collect, such as paper and other scraps. As my work progressed, I felt it demanded a third dimension for, in a way, my collages expressed the will to become “architectures”. You could say I steal techniques from the construction industry and combine them with alternative solutions that show my personal hand. My person is present, not only through my hand, but also through the materials used and processed. I often re-use old works and materials I come across in daily life that evince a combination of traces of use and time, both from the people who first used them and myself, presently. My works are constructed witnesses to my personal past as well as our communal cultural history and they are alive in the sense that they keep on changing as I keep on (de)constructing them according to my present state of mind, adding materials gathered over the period of time during which I was in that specific state of mind.

Untitled, collage, mixed media, 520 x 400 x 4 mm, 2015-2020