What is reality? What is truth? Is what we see real or is it just a reflection, a coloured and individually different “sensed” appearance of reality? Can the underlaying “real” be found or are we only able to see a reflection, our ‘interpretation’ of ‘real’?
The work of Katrien Claes addresses all these questions. The work plays with tones of indirect light, reflections, and illusions of depth to create an ever-changing appearance of what we see. The work uses the form and colour aspects of painting and crosses the two-dimensional limits of the traditional medium. Painting is extended in a three-dimensional method of working. Traditional materials such as canvas and oil paint are being left aside in favour of unconventional materials. As a result, the paintings obtain an illusory depth, which constantly changes through the reflection on the silver-coloured parts. The repetitive use of commonly known structures, each distorted by the changing depths and reflections, reinforce that the reality we experience, is only one of the ever-changing appearances.
