Thomas Lerooy Bittertweet

In his sculptures and drawings, Thomas Lerooy (*1981 in Roeselare) conjures up a fantastical world that takes spectators to the intimate frontiers of humanity, probing the dark areas and the flaws that define man's mental and physical limits. Each work evokes metaphysical questions as the artist offers his richly ironic explorations of themes such as creation, duality, captivity, transitoriness, and sexuality. Lerooy's drawings celebrate an aesthetic tradition reaching back to Leonardo da Vinci, but also recall the vanitas paintings of the seventeenth century melded with the grotesque and macabre humor of James Ensor. In his sculptures, the artist reveals his great fascination for the monumental tradition of sculpture and the meaning of "the aura" around art. Style and technique are handled in a perfectionist and mannerist way with an eye for detail and proportion.