Desenho e ecologia

Abstract

‘Everything of value is defenseless’ The image we have of nature over the centuries has been largely determined by how artists viewed the natural environment. Before public photography existed, the colored postcard or the first watercolor was an important source of information about the image of a particular landscape. While art initially mirrored nature, that nature gradually began to conform to art. Stefaan van Biesen’s drawings show or document gestures, actions, performances intended as an artistic conversation with nature versus culture and have led to several multidisciplinary projects, where ecology, or how we deal with the natural environment surrounding us, is the constant undertone. The silence, the drawing, at times the impotence and the hushed conversation with nature, are an artistic homage to what is in danger of disappearing or what needs to be protected. An empathetic act, a social aspect about how we interact with our environment. Or how nature/culture relate in a society where this “green opulence” is under pressure. What questions and answers pose themselves in a climatically changing world?