A story that is born in the heart of Africa ...
.png)
Van den berghe or sometimes Vandenberghe, whose civil name is François Vandenberghe, was born in 1951 in a small town of Eure et Loir in France.
Influenced by a very long stay of 27 years in Gabon, he will become a sport's celebrity by winning several championship titles, both in motorcycle and car races.
He will also be the creator and expedition leader of the famous Challenge de l'Equateur, elected event of the year in 1986.
Vandenberghe returned to his home country and devoted himself exclusively to plastic art since 1995.
Elephants remain the favorite subject of the artist, who stages them in allegories that he hides behind a disturbing appearance of reality.
To consider him as an "animal sculptor" constitutes a mistake, which the susceptibility of our man does not ignore!
.png)
... a story of rebellion
Driven by the artist's spirit of insubordination , it becomes easier to transcend the mirror of appearances. Discovering a world of agitation & effervescence, revealing disorders born from apprehension or from sensual emotion.
A modern-day Don Quixote (with sometimes a grandiloquent nobility) this artist who has experienced consistent success prefers to put himself in danger rather than indulge in a comfortable routine.
His elephants, with their incredible lightness, tackle questions as existential as birth and death, love and dependence, charm and egocentricity.
... a story of emotion ...
For those who have the privilege of visiting his workshop, it must be agreed that this creative-intuitionist always shows a great introspection, without falling into caricature and destroying those works that do not suit him.
Certainly, his way of treating the animal race in the sophistication of his realism, amazes the public and the critic.
Thierry SZNYTKA