Premio Combat Prize

Patrick Van Craenenbroeck
Patrick Van Craenenbroeck grows up in the Liedekerke and Affligem region, just on the edge of Pajottenland. He takes ‘design and ceramics’ courses at the Zottegem and Liedekerke Academies, and learns how to mould bronze at Anderlecht Academy. As the 70’s dawn, he starts by painting with surrealist touches before exploring just a few years later, work in three dimensions. From 1980, the surrealist approach disappears from his work and he concentrates above all on form, texture and expression in order to translate his thoughts into images. A veritable revolution takes place with the construction of his primitive gasfired oven in 1987: no more paint, colours and effects. He returns to base materials:
earth, fire and smoke. A new form grows, at first playful and abstract, and then more figurative.
He constructs a surprising and totally specific universe, subconsciously inspired by the ancient cultures which fascinate him and into which he can be fix an up-to-date message. A people is born: are they scouts or warriors, heroes or anti-heroes, chiefs, kings or disciples? Where do they come from? Where are they going? Do they come from the past, from another world? Are they launching themselves into the future? They grab your attention, demanding dialogue. They are characterised by power, dynamism, mysticism, their expression petrified. A primitive force. They are shadows of fire, they are everywhere and all the time. Van Craenenbroeck tries to tear the personages out of time, out of today’s accepted reality through form, movement, expression, the way he handles materials and the use of fire, in order to take them to a transcendental time denuded of any history. These are “TIME TRAVELLERS”.