Text by Benedicte Goesaert

Philippe Van Snick (1946-2019) lived and worked in Belgium. Since the early nineties he spent most of his summers in a remote house in France, Le Bos Nord, in the region of the Dordogne.
The universe of the artist goes beyond any geographical border. Philippe Van Snick enjoyed working at home and found a lot within this environment. The studio was a place for research, reading, listening to music, observation, contemplation, dialogue and artistic output. The house and the garden where places to share with family and friends and could turn into a source of inspiration for certain works of art. In the garden and through the windows he could witness the changes in nature and the presence and the absence of the sun and the moon. Both elements have a relation with each other and with the earth, in the sense they create the rhythm of day and night.
This rhythm structures our understanding and experience of time and space. When the sun, the moon and the earth are in a certain position, an eclips can occur. This form enters his oeuvre in the seventies.
When Van Snick travelled to distant countries such as Brazil or Japan, he stayed often for about three months. Being present in a certain moment or place was always a kind of engagement for the artist.
Philippe Van Snick was driven by a strong conceptual attitude he developed in the late sixties. He avoided symbolic and emotional expressions. An interest in mathematics, time, space and movement structured his works of art.
In 1979, he realized Kleurmachine (Colormachine), an orange dyed textile on which he attached ten sheets of color. Those ten colors are: red, yellow and blue (the primary colors); orange, green, violet (the secondary colors); white and black (the non-colors) and gold and silver (the metallics). In 1984, he introduces a light blue, representing the concept of day for his motif day/night.
The tonality of the ten + one colors are always the same. In 1992 he decided to mix the ten colors in random quantities which results in a black color applied on the sculptural painting ‘Punt’ (Point) (1992) of which two versions have been made. Three years later, in 1995, he further explored the mixing of the ten colors in different proportions in the series Mélanges particuliers.

The blue I always use is hard, just like the red, or the other colors. I have done so to rob it of all symbolic value. Only when you start mixing, you can allow sentiments to surface. This is why I kept mixing colors at bay for a long time. Once you start mixing, after all, you have to start thinking about composition. About the composition of a landscape, (…).

– Philippe Van Snick, Wouter Davidts: Between painting and sculpture. About the necessity of the concrete experience in the oeuvre by Philippe Van Snick. Territorium, Ghent, S.M.A.K., 2001.

Later on, Van Snick expanded his use of color by adding white to his existing color palette such as in Synthesis (black) or by allowing pink, grey or other tones of colors as in the series on paper Le Bos Nord. The decision to work with ten colors was driven by the basic numbers (0-9) present in contemporary algebra.
The etymological definition of the word algebra, with roots in the Arab language, refers to the reunion of broken parts. This mathematical principal leads to a philosophical interest in the relation between an entity as a whole and its fragmented parts when division or scattering happens. Philippe Van Snick translated this in his series Monochrome déstabilisé-re (1980) and the performance Demonstration gold and silver (1984) at the stock exchange in Brussels, among others.
Van Snick was active through different media: work on paper, photography, painting, installation, sculpture, video and performance. An important historical sculpture is (0-9) Cijfercode dated 1982. Each wire represents one of the ten numbers by the corners that can be counted and define the form.
From the late nineties onwards and especially since mid 2000, Van Snick bends his own principles in favor of further artistic exploration and a desire to connect with his appreciation and care for nature. One of the series, made in his residence in France, is titled Le Bos Nord.

In 1985 Van Snick shares already his view onto nature and life:

(…) Nature is uniform in its global and comprehensive overview… there is only one nature. Whitin that nature species of living beings are subject to the same patterns but with a different externality bound to place and time. This is also with the art I make.

Vibração is an exhibition about the resonance of thoughts, artistic creations, colors and encounters with the work by Philippe Van Snick. October 22, S.M.A.K., the Museum for Contemporary Art in Ghent will open a solo exhibition curated by Marta Mestre and Luk Lambrecht.
Work by Philippe Van Snick can be found in public and private collections amongst which: Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serralves in Porto (PT), S.M.A.K. in Ghent (BE), Mu.Zee in Ostend (BE), Middelheimmuseum in Antwerp (BE), Collection Frac Nord Pas de Calais (FR), MoMA in New York (USA) amongst others.
Since 2019, The Philippe Van Snick Estate fosters the artistic legacy with care and with the ambition to keep the work alive and to (re)activate the knowledge and connection with this oeuvre by working on the inventory of the oeuvre and supporting exhibitions, research and publications. The Philippe Van Snick Estate is now represented by the wife of the artist, Marijke Dekeukeleire.