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The practice of Belgian artist Johan Gelper revolves around in situ installations, assemblages and drawings, exploring the potentialities of the movement. Interacting with the surrounding space, his sculptures provoke a perceptive instability. Fascinated by biomorphic and vegetative forms, the artist erects organic compositions made up of fragile objects (umbrellas, fans, plastic tubes, brooms…). The tour de force of these assemblages lies in an injection of dynamic movement, by unifying seemingly disparate elements and creating “drawings in the space”, architectural structures mounted on a precarious base.

As for the strictly speaking graphical work of Johan Gelper, it consists of geometric lines, schemas of mechanical pieces and plants, explicitly inscribed in a concrete volume. The interactions and intersections with other spatial elements propose new architectural forms. Within these intuitive and fortuitous networks composed of arbitrary marks, other 3D shapes aim to twist the traditional system of the third dimension.

Each of these compositions tends to blur the visual and, by extension, the spatial reference points of the visitor.

Image: Balance, 2019, granite stone, chrome steel, steel (weights), carbon (tentpoles), rubber (potato), plastic (toasts, twigs), steel wire and paint, 165 x 165 x 30 cm