Pierre Debatty
Uncovering of Light
Belgian painter Pierre Debatty loves the challenge of historic and meaningful places. In the abbey ruins of Villers-la-Ville, in the coalmine museum Bois du Casier and in the streets of the university town of Louvain-la-Neuve, he showed works in relation to what is experienced in these sites. Committed to landscape painting in materialistic abstract style, he likes giving an important role to colour in his works. At first interested in red and dark colours, he has now developed an interest for white and light. Eastertide was therefore the ideal time of the year to welcome Pierre Debatty at the cathedral. At the invitation of the chaplain to the artists, he painted eleven monumental works for the nave and apse of the cathedral, presenting a way of light which he integrated in the gothic architecture. Their abstract style allows each visitor to envisage his interpretation by association.
The first painting is by far the darkest one. Against a gloomy background only the glorious colours of a cross appear. At its foot, a human silhouette contemplates the above.
Towards the choir, the paintings gradually give a more important space to light. First there is a canvas where the black colour of death laying on the ground and of dark threatening clouds are contrasted by white dots. Then, light gets the overhand in a variety of whites crossed by graphic erratic black lines. In a fourth painting, yellows and browns join in with the whites, which erupt in vertical lines, pushing away the lines of the previous work outside the composition. This warm resurrection is closest to the altar and lectern where, during each Eucharist, the resurrection of Christ is commemorated.
On the columns on either side of the altar two works further evoke the paschal light and guide our eyes to the painting in the apse, which is devoted to a joyful festival of whites.
Back in the nave, opposite the organ, the first painting includes a palette of greens, a colour traditionally symbolising hope, but here it also alludes to nature. With the resurrection, a new creation can start. It is in the garden of this new creation that the resurrected Christ-gardener meets Mary Magdalena. A further canvas dominated by greys and whites and evoking the mystery of the unrecognisable presence of the resurrected leads the visitor to a flamboyant work. In an outburst of reds the fragility and the strength of life as well as the fire of the enthusiasm are depicted. The last and largest painting offers a synthesis of the series where reds, blacks and whites are intertwined, mirroring the variety of emotions which mark our human ways of life.
Alain Arnould OP, Chaplain to the artists
Further works of Pierre Debatty can be seen until June 14th
at Gallery 2016, Rue des Pierres 16, Brussels.
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