05 march 2025, Yves Joris
Frank JMA Castelyns and the space between being and disappearing
Images do not remain silent. They whisper, call, sing and resonate in the depths of our memory. In 'The Image is not Silent', the most recent exhibition by Frank JMA Castelyns at Rik Rosseels Gallery, we are confronted with images that refuse to be pinned down to a single meaning. His sculptures and installations exist in the twilight zone between memory and transience, matter and symbolism. Each work is a trace, a ruin of meaning, an attempt to articulate what is always on the verge of disappearing.
As an artist, Castelyns traverses the world in search of a visual language that embeds itself beneath the viewer’s skin. His work has a layered structure: the aesthetics capture attention, after which deeper layers of meaning unfold. His images act as ‘memories’, laden with symbolism and references to art historical, philosophical and societal traditions. They are objects that invite introspection, inevitably awakening something in the viewer’s memory.
Frank JMA Castelyns In memory of Henri Baude, 2025, Rik Rosseels Gallery
Memory as a hinge between time and matter
Castelyns’ work explores the boundaries between permanence and the elusive. His sculptures often appear robust, rooted in matter, yet their meaning remains in flux. In "In Memory of Henri Baude", a marble cube balances on the threshold of the monumental and the ephemeral. The engraved pentagram refers to the age-old quest for knowledge, while a fragile spinning top resting atop a stone embodies the fleeting moment between movement and stillness. Like memories, which exist only as long as they are recalled, the top is at its most glorious only as long as it spins. This work is not a fixed tribute, but an exploration of presence and disappearance.
Memory is a central theme in Castelyns’ oeuvre. He not only investigates how memories are preserved in objects, but also how they fade, distort or suddenly come to life through a visual stimulus. The choice of a cube — an elemental, seemingly stable and immutable object — contrasted with a spinning top, a playful yet transient movement, reinforces the opposition between what endures and what vanishes. The pentagram, a frequently used symbol in mysticism and esotericism, adds another layer to his work. It alludes to a search for meaning that unfolds beyond the visible, a journey that is both introspective and universal.
Frank JMA Castelyns, Vestibule, Rik Rosseels Gallery
Vestibule, a waiting room for time
In "Vestibule", Castelyns shifts his exploration of memory to another register. A metal pole anchored in a car tire serves as a coat rack for a collection of jackets. At the top, an orange signpost points outward, bearing the Latin words Distentio Animi — a term used by Augustine to describe the experience of time as an expansion of the soul. Here, memory is no longer a fixed monument, but a collection of abandoned traces. Who wore these jackets? What is the sign pointing to? Instead of providing answers, "Vestibule" compels us to wander among associations and stories that remain just out of reach.
At the same time, the work contains a certain playfulness. The dead rabbit lying atop the pole, the ordinariness of the jackets — they evoke images of a waiting room, a liminal space between departure and arrival. This work underscores how Castelyns’ images act as thresholds, as passages into a space in which time is fluid and memories are continuously rewritten. The signpost suggests direction, but the destination remains unclear. As in "In Memory of Henri Baude", Castelyns seems to render the intangibility of time and experience palpable.
The choice of materials in "Vestibule" is not arbitrary. Car tires, metal poles, coats and a dead animal evoke associations with travel, transition, protection and abandonment. This work can be read as a metaphor for the human condition: we carry memories with us, leave traces behind and seek meaning in the signs left by others. At the same time, "Vestibule" references the institutional space of a vestibule: a place of waiting, of in-between states, of neither fully being present nor absent. Consequently, the installation acts as a visual and conceptual threshold between worlds.
Frank JMA Castelyns, ILLUSION ZUM TODE, 2024, Rik Rosseels Gallery
Image as silence and resonance
Throughout his oeuvre, Castelyns oscillates between materiality and symbolism, between the tangible and the elusive. His works are never unambiguous; they demand an active viewing posture and a willingness to allow memories and associations run free. 'The Image is not Silent' demonstrates how he succeeds in creating images that are not merely objects but catalysts of experience.
His oeuvre is rooted in a long tradition of sculpture and installations that engage in dialogue with the viewer. The commemorative function of art has fascinated artists for centuries, from Renaissance memento mori to contemporary installations that engage with collective memory and identity. Castelyns positions himself within this tradition, but adds a contemporary, playful complexity. His work does not suggest absolute truths, but invites reflection.
The paradox of Castelyns’ art is that it captures the fleeting while simultaneously emphasising the elusiveness of memory. The spinning top atop the marble cube reminds us that everything is in motion, that even the most solid of structures are not immune to the erosion of time. The jackets in "Vestibule" symbolise bodies that were once present, voices that once spoke, but now exist only as absence.
Frank JMA Castelyns, L’apparition, 2015, Rik Rosseels Gallery
'The Image is not Silent' proves how Castelyns’ oeuvre continuously engages in dialogue with the invisible. Whether it is the suspended spinning top confronting us with the fragility of memories or the abandoned jackets in "Vestibule", referring to both absence and presence, his images invite reflection. They do not provide answers, but allow meanings to circulate, balancing between the physical and the mental, between remembering and forgetting.
Castelyns is an artist of ambiguity, someone who holds symbol and object in a delicate balance. His work moves between abstract concepts and tangible materials, between the personal and the universal. Perhaps that is the power of his art: it poses questions that linger, like an image that continues to reverberate in the mind, an image that does not remain silent, but whispers, trembles and resonates — as long as someone is willing to look.
