Frank Slabbinck & Klaas Vanderperren - Gallery Zoute

20-09-2025 till 02-11-2025

Artist Statement:  Frank Slabbinck
In "COLORS OF LIFE", Frank Slabbinck weaves together human, animal, and myth into encounters that are surprising and often humorous. His visual and painterly language resists being confined to a single style: diverse techniques and expressive colors merge into a universe of his own. Beneath the playfulness lies a layered symbolic vocabulary. His paintings and sculptures are imbued with metaphors that embrace not only joy and vitality, but also loss, longing, and melancholy - the many colors of life. This series does not tell a single story; it opens doors for the viewer to step through. Recent events in Slabbinck's life have brought a new intensity to his work. His sons - both artists themselves - are reflected in it, turning his oeuvre into an intimate family portrait. After half a century of artmaking, Frank Slabbinck still surprises with new forms and visions. His visual world continues to challenge, move, and unsettle - again and again, always in new ways.

Artist Statement:  Klaas Vanderperren
With "DOCTOR, DOCTOR, I'M IN PAINT" and "FACES", Klaas Vanderperren brings together two worlds: painting and ceramics. Different in form, yet sharing the same energy - a jubilant play of color, humor, and the many faces of the human condition. In "DOCTOR, DOCTOR, I'M IN PAINT", the paintings are expressive and explosive. Figures emerge from chaotic layers of paint, while the titles sound like ironic diagnoses: witty, sharp, and sometimes bitter. They touch on our daily survival - from social pressure to addiction, from comfort to the desire for perfection. Perhaps not medicinal, but certainly addictive. Vanderperren doesn't write prescriptions - he paints them. With "FACES", he shifts this exploration to ceramics. Eleven exclusive masks embody the roles we adopt and conceal every day: a smile for the outside world, a mask for Instagram, a face that says more than we realize. Playful and confrontational at once. Together, paint and clay create a dialogue between seriousness and self-mockery, tradition and contemporaneity - a vibrant celebration of who we are, and of what we sometimes prefer to hide.