A Corner of Home Lien Buysens and Thomas Vandenberghe
A CORNER OF HOME
Lien Buysens and Thomas Vandenberghe
Published 15 April, 2020
In the days that have passed and the days that are to come, we'll all be spending more time indoors. A Corner of Home collects photographic studies and new works made by artists in their immediate environments; small snapshots of the impulse to create.
Edited by Trine Stephensen and Joanna Cresswell
1. Where are you living at the moment and how has that environment shaped you creatively? Can you tell us about a favourite detail of this place and why?
We both live in Ghent, Belgium. I share a flat/workspace and gallery with Sybren Vanoverberghe. Lien has her cozy house on the other side of town. Lien and I plan to live together in the near future, waiting for our little monkey to join the family. During this lockdown we spend most of our time in our future house. My place (no/gallery) is all about photography; Lien’s is mostly about painting and drawing. It’s nice to feel how these two mediums are starting to mix and how two individual artists are coming together, collaborating and influencing each other, using the knowledge of their own field. This project can also be a good excuse for a future “diaper bill” exhibition.
2. How have you looked at the materials of home differently in the past weeks? Are there parts of it that have revealed themselves to you in new ways?
Inspired by being a bit bored of being stuck in one place we’ve started working together. Lately, collage and etching have started to emerge in my own work. These days I’ve been looking into how I could translate this into my photography. I’ve started looking at domestic stuff differently. Domestic scenes are common in Lien’s work; a can, flowers, and abstractions of objects like them. She named her latest work In jugs and jars, which refers to the Dutch proverb that everything is fine. It is about being comforted by repetitive, familiar forms. Because of the same boring routine and environment every day, one gradually becomes intertwined with things. With more spare time on one’s hands, time demands an appreciation for the dullest and simplest things on earth. Time often entails intensity. I put the photographic background out and things came together themselves.
3. Tell us about how you’ve been using photography lately? What are you making or putting in front of the lens?
The lockdown forces us to live slowly. Time passes but things hardly change. I take time to look at and pay extra attention to objects by isolating them from their familiar surroundings, placing them in front of the photographic background. We work attentively, capturing small changes such as shifting shadows, adding or removing details, manipulating images using painting and drawing. The photographic background becomes the playground where things gradually come to life again. It’s still a work in progress, the images we capture now will be developed and edited later in the darkroom. The focus in my photographic work is on the tangible material and on translating slowness and repetition into unique pieces. The printed image will become a new canvas for the final work. Printed light/dark, painted, drawn...There is enough time to spend and think about the final image.
