Artist Max Kesteloot (1990) gets his inspiration from road trips and hikes, from his hometown Ostend to the Spanish Costa Blanca. During these trips, he takes photos that he immediately prints with a compact mini-printer, ensuring that these moments do not slip his mind.
For the first time, Kesteloot presents these framed snapshots or studies as stand-alone works. In doing so, he offers the viewer a glimpse of the places and subjects that fascinate him. His focus is on a wide range of motifs: from palm trees and various plants to graffiti and words on billboards, shop windows, etc. Sometimes he returns to certain locations to capture new images with a handycam. From these short film clips, he then chooses stills which he converts to paintings on canvas.
For Kesteloot, the translation from image to painting has become a unique and essential process. Using transparent acrylic, he transfers the colour pigment from A3 paper print onto Belgian linen using a technique all his own. The process is intense and varied, allowing him to step back and then continue the work with renewed control. An increasing degree of abstraction is visible in his most recent series of paintings. Kesteloot invites the viewer to make an image or memory his own, an invitation to interact, because ‘no one else can feel it for you.’