Koen Broucke. My Private Path, 2005

BEGINNING

In spring 2004 Koen Broucke was chosen to Raumars Artists in Residence Programme for the year 2005. When Vuojoki Foundation asked me to suggest an exhibition for their grand opening for autumn 2005 I introduced Koen Broucke. Being a historian and an artist Broucke found the idea inspiring. During the spring 2005 I sent him long text about history of Vuojoki; biographies, history of the mansion, years and history of politics. We exchanged e-mails and put the work ahead. Boechout, Paris, Vuojoki, Rauma – everything experienced during the year took it’s place in artists’ mind and gave material to the art work, everything that we did not know a year ago is now ahead of us. What it is and why it is?

DREAM

Broucke’s work is a dreamlike snow white ceramic scale model. It was done with the help of Ceramic Association Keramos and at their studio. It reminds of scale model cities in historical museums, but it is artists’ own mind landscape. Places, events, people and things that happened during the summer 2005 got their place in the work. Very often house is used as a symbol of mind, in our dreams we go around the houses, we wander from room to the other. What it is in Broucke’s landscape? What it is in a dream, that My Private Path is passing?

FLOATING WORLD

Our artist takes his ideas from European cultural heritage: music, history, artist myths. He himself seems to be a strange sophisticated creation of European civilization in Finnish setting. All those books, piano playing, politeness. I am thinking of the zen, what we talked about on sunny days by the beach, sitting on a rock undera frizzy pine tree. How things get their forms and find their connections spontaneously. Artist paints on a Japanese paper. I am thinking of ukiyo-e, a Japanese wood cut. Ukiyo-e means “floating world”, an ethereal world of joys. Wood cuts depict actresses, courtesans, tea rooms, theatre plays: living this moment, covetting pleasures of life. Shadows, drawn gestures on air – do I see something or is it just a vision? I am thinking of Japanese ceramics, which is aestethics of errors. Ceramics are highly appreciated in Japan. They can even exhibit pot shards.

COMPOSITION

The scenery consists of small creatures. Broucke draws his creatures into the paper as a row of chords. He picks up identifiable figures from a visual cacophony and draws them into his pictures. Ink blade scratches the paper. You can hear a small sound.

November 2005, Kati Kivimäki, Lönnströn Art Museum / Raumars A.i.R.