Galerie Transit presents the first solo gallery exhibition of Daniël Bellon (°1976) with the title Libri Idiotarum. The title refers to the origin of Christian art. In the year 600, Pope Gregory I writes that it is acceptable to depict scenes from the Bible, including the face of Christ, because "what scripture is to the literate, are images to the illiterate."

Bellon's paintings depict the perverse delight in the violation of flesh that the painter finds in this richly decorated art history. It is from this intersection of the impact of historical painting on the one hand and the sacredness of the violation and adoration of a wounded body on the other, that the artist finds his inspiration. Fascinated by the carnal nature of the human figure and triggered by the figure of Christ as presented in the visual arts over the centuries, paintings are created that present the vulnerable (paint) skin in terms of both presentation and representation. That skin conceals and reveals and by allowing the painting to solidify at the right moment, the painter holds out to the viewer a lasting unfulfilled promise.
In the evolution of the painter, we notice that the references to Christian iconography become less explicit and that an individual visual language develops. Symbols and body parts are becoming less and less recognizable. Where in earlier work hands, legs, torso and feet were served in isolation as still life, now indefinable fleshy pieces occupy the image surface. Bellon paints a multitude of volumes on, under, through and over each other, skin over flesh, lifeless over the edge of the table or stretched sculpturally. From a distance, the flesh is palpably powerful, limp, apparently dead or convulsing. Up close, it breaks down into paint, finger strokes and brushstrokes.

Artists: Daniël Bellon