Maarten De Laet
Maarten De Laet (°1996) is a Belgian visual and mixed media artist living and working in Leuven, BE. In 2017 he obtained his bachelor's degree in Photography from Narafi (LUCA School of Arts), Brussels.
During his studies, you could already observe how he focused on preserving his memories and imagination. After his studies, he decided to experiment with new media forms to broaden his spectrum. In this way he came in contact with 3D art, digital and in reality.
Maarten De Laet's oeuvre is best described as a surrealist movement. His works arise from an urge to escape reality and the environment around him. Starting from his personal memories and imagination, he creates objects that can kill time. It is a reaction against the inevitability of forgetting. Maarten De Laet is mainly concerned with storing the reality around him, such as friends or things he sees. This storing of reality comes from a fear of losing or forgetting things. In his own words, he lives in his own world. Because of this, he thought it would be interesting to archive and store his thoughts and fantasies. He did this through photography and with the help of photoshop. This way Maarten created his fantasies, by adding things to a photographed reality. In this way his portraits become characters, and become detached from reality.
In the full covid period, he started experimenting with claying and 3D printers. His images are linked to a moment, like a portal. Each image the artist creates brings something to the artist himself through memories. By using different memories and imaginations, he can create different images. Maarten De Laet makes sketches from a subconscious and explores how he can work them out pictorially. He experiments with making molds, which turn into ceramics or a 3D print.
Maarten is a member of studio Annext, which is an initiative of Annext vzw in collaboration with Labora and Cas-co. The project is supported by MIJNLEUVEN.
Teaser
ELAPSE
Through the group exhibition Elapse, Curating the Young facilitates a dialogue between four artists and the remarkable context of the historic silos at Vaartkom in the city of Leuven. The exploratory practice of these artists examines the temporality of their work and the context in which it is presented. What if we ceased to fear impermanence and instead embraced it?
Impermanence may be intangible, but it can simultaneously offer a sense of direction and support. Elapse reflects this sense of temporality in the practices of the participating artists and refers to transience in our social contexts. The silos of the city's last industrial mill provide a space for Maarten De Laet (°1996), Amber Roucourt (°1998), Andrei Haesen (°1997) and Jan Van Eijgen (°1995) to reflect on the ongoing evolution and impermanence of our surroundings.
Curated by Curating The Young, in close collaboration with Cas-co / Studio Annext