Luk Vermeerbergen's work consists of paintings, photographs, sculptures, and installations.
The paintings can be described as 'lyrical-abstract'. Sometimes poetic and demure but more often explosive and exuberant. An amalgamation of shapes and colours referring to our collective subconsciousness.
This is mirrored by an abundant use of different materials.
Such diversity suggests restlessness,passion, seizing the moment, grasping an ephemeral emotion.
An explanation is superfluous and therefore not offered. From the moment a work gets exhibited it becomes independent and the artist distances himself in order not to impede the viewer's interpretation.
An installation may be premeditated. In that case, the choice of materials and shape is laid down in a blueprint which reflects the actual construction.
In other cases they are inspired by the surroundings in which they are erected. They are then a combination of the effects of chance (the available materials) and the intentional (to convert and assimilate these materials into the installation).
Materials are often organic: straw, bamboo, granite, wood... but can also be scrap iron or used tools, namely hammers.
Often the number 13 plays its part, especially when hammers are used.
Most installations are not conceptual but based on materials and shape.
The idea of converting used tools into sculptures emanated form being intrigued and fascinated by the link between these tools -especially
hammers- and the people that had used them. One can read a tool as a biography. Each one has its own unique past with a different tale to tell.
Creating sculptures with these tools is often a matter of happenstance, as if they had a mind of their own.
Although the sculptures are considerably varied -sometimes aesthetic, or delicate, or harmonious, or powerful, or chaotic- the common denominator is the 'found' materials they are made of.
Even when brand-new, pristine materials such as granite, marble, or stone, are required for the realisation of a certain idea, the artist's intervention is minimal.
