SERGE

LE BELGE

Serge le Belge (aka Serge Vandenberghe)

Serge le Belge has been living in Cork since 1992. He is 100% self-taught,
and began to paint professionally in 1989, after years of political activism in the radical peace movement. Serge started out as a silk painter, and has since expanded his range of media to all forms of painting, sculpture, street arts, scenic arts, music and poetry.

Serge’s craving for collective expression flourishes in the performing arts and community-based
artistic projects, but he cherishes equally the solitude of studio practice!  Serge has been making floats, masks and puppets for street performances for decades with Dowtcha Puppets (now Cork Puppetry Company) and build and painted theatre sets for Triangle Productions for about 15 years;  He was one of the founding members of the Outlaw Studios and was a resident artist at Camden Palace Community arts centre for three years. He’s also been involved with Cork Art Trail and Corcadorca Theatre company.
In his studio work, geometrical painting alternates with figurative representations of more realistic worlds, where open, desolate spaces constitute a perfect background for poetic and symbolic visual compositions.

Those visual poems use the colours of Belgian surrealism, the glazes of the Flemish master, the knots of traditional Celtic ornaments, or the distorted perspectives of modernism.

Then came sculpture.  It’s through building theatre sets that Serge learned to work in three dimensions.  And He still uses techniques and materials of theatre set design.

Like theatre, it is fake; but it speaks!