Marc Vanderleenen has always been a painter of shapes and colors that are still looming, or that are just as much already perishing, as if they are seen through the veil of a dream in greyscale. There are no clear and distinct ideas in his work, no final certainties of a thinking subject. Against Descartes, he mobilizes Spinoza’s expression, forever expressing itself
differently. Everything takes place in that hesitant, paranoid state in which something is still
developing, and there is no definite answer as to what it is exactly....

The question Vanderleenen seems to ask, can thus be formulated as follows: what is it
precisely that takes shapes though painting, and equally through looking, or living. And if
something is indeed taking shape, if there is such thing as a shaped identity, does it not
deform at the same time? in: Against Judgment, Koen Sels, January 2024 Marc Vanderleenen - The Pale Horse

Artists: Marc Vanderleenen