The whimsical world of Kati Heck comes alive at Tim Van Laere Gallery

‘Legende’ is the new solo exhibition by Kati Heck, an artist based in Germany. In a fantastic creative fest, Kati’s latest works were displayed at the Tim Van Laere Gallery from 19th May 2022 to 1st July 2022. The German artist is known for her lucid artwork that is bewildering and holds a style of departing imagery from reality. She is an artist who carries on the lineage of enigmatic art that is disturbed, disrupted and has nearly distorted subjects, sure to keep the observer guessing. As an artist, she holds the rare quality of emanating confusion and conjecture through her art that makes any average joe dwell beyond the realms of actuality and into an old storybook accentuating fire-breathing dragons, six-limbed neanderthals and well-dressed apes. Even though Heck has managed to master the mediums of watercolours, gouache, oil paints and even fabrics to portray her complex oeuvre and love for portraiture, with ‘Legende’, she platforms her thoughts through art alongside weirdly appealing pieces of furniture.

Though all of Kati’s pieces are confined within the creative realms of the Tim Van Laere Gallery, her art appears to depict a sense of gushing energy that boils with movement in an otherwise still world. It is as if all of her subjects, be it in the paintings, the sculptures or even the furniture, are in the middle of accomplishing certain mythical missions.

With the solo exhibition, Kati channels the literary genre of legends and lores that are often retold through the centuries. Even though these widely alluring windows into a make-believe world have been conveniently moderated through decades, one thing that has been a constant stronghold is the truth behind each of these stories. Kati dwells upon the thought of how this vertebral truth is twisted, exaggerated and distorted through time, snatching away the ease to confirm or deny the accuracy of these stories. She effectively translates this corrupted truth of fables into beautiful artworks. For instance, a moon-faced sofa that seems to look back at the observer, the simple stools scribed with text, or the 'Jungs III- Goldene Hand' painting that features a familiar face transforming into a tree. Alongside an ordinary-looking woman in her painting named 'Bianco Bianco', who sits in silence with her little furry friend and four illusory arms and even the twilight zone inspired 'Dammerung' painting which features a cave scene with dead bodies and feeding cripples.

Alongside the fables, Kati's compositions also draw inspiration from art history, literature, personal experiences and her immediate environment. For instance, a lot of her work is motivated by the art styles of Hieronymus Bosch, a Dutch artist from the late 1400s and Pieter Bruegel, the prolific name from the art world of the Flemish renaissance, both of which held neanderthals or peasants as subjects dancing through heretical scenarios. Furthermore, she creatively populates her paintings with her friends, family, neighbours and pets through scenarios that upon first look, seem to reveal and explain themselves, but upon longer observation, make one drift into a mind-maze.

Also determining the course of the exhibition was Kati's interest in what it would be like if humanity evolved back into the age of the neanderthals. It shaped itself in a subtle dichotomy between the developing world and shrinking IQs in humans for which she presented a self-portrait from 2021. Both a prologue and an epilogue are furnished by this self-portrait in which the artist presents herself as a Neanderthal. She showcases a circular process that also represents the absorption of the opposite integration of the start with the finish as a central theme for all of her artworks.

Tim Van Laere Gallery leaves no stone unturned in justifying the beauty and the scale of impact that Kati's art creates. They festoon the entire space to feature and guide the design and art enthusiasts through Kati's mind and her art only to be baffled by the thought behind each one of the exhibits. The exhibition is a synthesis of different styles that combine different elements of expressionism and surrealism with a thought for mankind and its impending issues.