Vision
The drawings, paintings and (garden) statues are reflections of my perception of the world around me. Subjective images that start as a personal experience but gradually climb to a universal level.
The two dimensional, figurative artworks (in mostly white and grey tones) cross the line between seeing and thinking. They are not merely a collection of things but a visualisation of ideas. That’s why I seldom use colours because I am searching for a balance between the intellectual and the visual experience and colours tend to emphasise the visual aspect.
Sometimes I even place black gauze over the image on the canvas to invite the viewer to look more closely and to be drawn into the artwork.
Every one of my artworks is realistic but not ‘true’. Very often, the cast shadows are missing or the anatomy of the figure is not totally correct. This tension between subtle deviation and correctness gives to the artwork a reality of its own. It strengthens the duality between seeing en thinking, reality and imagination, lei and truth.
The titles are very carefully chosen. They are after all important keys to the interpretation of the works. They are the gates through which the viewer enters the artworks. It might very well be that the interpretation of the viewer differs from that of the artists and a new title seems more appropriate to the viewer. As a result, title and artwork interfere with each other in a dynamic process that continues even after the work is completed.
My artistic ‘heroes’ are not so much the classic, renowned artists like Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, or Monet but contemporary artists that give figurative art a new élan and put it back at its righteous place between the often overvalued abstract avant-garde. Some names: Bruno Walpot, Michaël Borremans, Sam Dillemans, Antony Gormley, Jenny Saville, Gehard Demetz, H. Craig Hanna, Jenny Morgan, Jason Shawn Alexander, Cindy Wright, Lucian Freud, Filip Sterckx, Juan Bautista Nieto,…
Biography
° 29 January 1960, Antwerp, Belgium
Karel is the son and grandson of professional artists. He grew up in artists’ studios between the smell of turpentine and oil paint. So he learned to draw from his early childhood days on. As a result, he was initially not really interested in an artistic career and became a biologist.
But it is impossible to escape from a genetic predestination.
Although Karel never put the drawing materials totally
aside, it wasn’t until his 30th that he totally devoted his life to
art. His attention first shifted from drawings to sculptures. But for the moment they both get equal attention with perhaps a certain preference for the 2 dimensional works.
From a strictly educational viewpoint Karel is an autodidact.
But the simple fact that he grew up between painters and sculptors in artists’ studios makes his artistic education very similar to that of the old masters, who also spend their youth in exactly the same environment.
Interesting detail : Karel Hadermann has the same anomaly as Leonardo da Vinci. Mirror writing is for him much easier than ‘normal’ writing.