1525 EDM3
© Ivan Put

Every week, BRUZZ goes in search of the sound and vision of Brussels. It’s E.D.M.’s turn to bring us to his studio in Molenbeek, where he creates oil paintings on wood with sparse, dark outlines.

E.D.M.’s studio can be found in one of the old Belle-Vue bottling plants, in the heart of the borough of Molenbeek. 1,100 square metres were transformed, on the initiative of RES ARS SPRL, into a space which houses the work of several artists. The first floor is a prime example of post-industrial restoration, at the end of which visitors find themselves in front of the space occupied by the painter, who was born in 1958. The stripped-down aspect of the place is impressive; you would swear it was arranged according to the rules of feng shui. It is made up of two parts. The first contains a library filled with publications of every kind, while the second is concealed by a curtain. Hidden behind it is E.D.M.’s “creative sanctuary”, which is made up of a large table, a camp bed, and a backlit device that serves as an easel version 2.0 – this is mainly distinguished by a grey background for softening the contrast between the compositions and the whiteness of the walls. This monastic cell has two functions: to create a private sphere, but also to allow the artist to draw a symbolic boundary between himself and the world. E.D.M.’s career is atypical, broken even. It is full of disappearances. It wouldn’t surprise us to learn that the man who created the sets for Fabrice Du Welz’s film Alléluia – which earned him a Magritte – was delighted to read, about himself, Jean Ferry’s famous words about the writer Raymond Roussel: “We know more about Virgil than we do about him.”

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© Ivan Put | E.D.M.'s studio

When he started off, E.D.M. made a glorious entrance into the art world. As soon as he had finished his studies, he joined a gallery in Knokke whose message to him was crystal-clear: “Welcome among us.” His beginnings were exhilarating; he produced like a madman. His work was colourful, somewhere between abstraction and figuration. As time passed, his enthusiasm waned. He didn’t feel like himself within the pressures of that environment and struggled with having to put on an act in order to sell himself. This malaise grew, to the point that it was like a “terrible heartache”, so intense that “you wonder how you’re going to continue to exist.” One night, he resolved to put a stop to it all. “The problem is that, when you wake up the next day, you know it’s not possible because it’s your reason to live,” he explains. Unable to stop creating, E.D.M. nevertheless made the decision to start over with a clean slate. “Break my ties with the art world, change my name for a pseudonym, and completely rethink my way of working, that was my answer to the artistic wilderness in which I was lost.”

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© Ivan Put

For 13 years, E.D.M. remained on the margins, no longer exhibited, and approached no one, adopting a fundamental philosophy that consists of “exhibiting because you have painted, not painting because you have to exhibit.” To make the break completely final, the artist decided to familiarise himself with a new technique, that of oil painting on wood. A “very slow” practice. E.D.M. opted for an uncompromising approach, choosing a small format for his work – 30x40 cm for the biggest – which he coats with successive layers, giving the impression of a progressive descent into darkness. This method requires a significant amount of time for drying, which is why marks with dates can be found on the back of the paintings, allowing their evolution to be followed over time. Some took nearly ten years. In the Jozsa gallery, where he is currently exhibited, one can contemplate dark landscapes, dominated by mountains, which are now E.D.M.’s trademark. Like the rugged terrain they depict, the compositions are ascetic.

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© Ivan Put | E.D.M.'s studio

The paintings put your eyes to work, and undoubtedly evoke a state of mind. To paint them, E.D.M. derives inspiration from photographs garnered from old books found in Pêle-Mêle, as well as from fleeting moments – “an image in the cinema, on the television, in life” – that, in a flash, stir something within him. And whose poetic splendour is brought to life by his paintings.

Makeshift bed
In a corner of E.D.M.’s studio, a camp bed slumbers. We were not surprised to discover this makeshift bed in the lair of a painter who tends to shut himself off from the world. There is something hermit-like about his place. The presence of this canvas structure attests to it. It is suggestive of a very poignant theme, often found in literature, painting, and philosophy: that of earthly existence. One thinks particularly of Empedocles’s famous sandals, left by the old sage on the rim of Etna, into which he threw himself, or of Van Gogh’s boots, in whose crevices Heidegger detected “the dark privacy” of a fragile existence. The connection can be found in a logic of inverse proportionality: the finer the outline, the more sacred the object it depicts. E.D.M.’s bed belongs to the category of “things that make you alter the tone of your voice when speaking of them.” All the more so as, at the time of our visit, a copy of Yves Bonnefoy’s L’Arrière-pays was lying on it. In an interesting parallel, if Bonnefoy can provide a different way of speaking, E.D.M.’s work is quite simply an invitation to paint differently.

Borough: Molenbeek
Expo: “A Few Mountains”, > 1/7, Jozsa Gallery, www.jozsagallery.com

Wunderkammer

AGENDA gaat op zoek naar de sound and vision van Brussel / AGENDA part à la recherche des sons et des images de Bruxelles / AGENDA goes in search of the sound & vision of Brussels.

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