Thierry De Cordier

Thierry De Cordier is a philosopher, visual artist, writer and poet. As a young artist, he lived a nomadic existence that led him to reflect upon architecture as a model for social relations. For a long time, his garden was a substitute and a metaphor for the world. Later, he turned his back to the world to look at the sea. His work, in which the infinitely small is reflected in the infinitely big, develops organically from his inner psyche.

Desolate landscapes, seascapes and mountains are among the themes that interest him. Partly inspired by the vast, black and white topographies of 17th and 18th century Chinese painting, they also capture the essential qualities of the landscape and light of Northern Europe. The grey skies and ink black seas in his paintings evoke melancholy, with the most dramatic scenes being those in which waves and mountainous cliffs fuse together to embody the forces of nature within a single primal image. The subject of God and the definition or non-definition of God is at the core of his calligraphic works. Oscillating between the absurd and the sacred, the words become the spiritual medium of an image that strives to materialise the invisible.

Thierry De Cordier (b. 1954, Ronse, Belgium) currently lives and works in Ostend, Belgium. A large room dedicated to his work was on view in the exhibition The Encyclopedic Palace at the Venice Biennale (2013). Solo exhibitions include Iconotextures at Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels (2016); Landschappen at BOZAR, Brussels (2012) and Drawings at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2004-2005). In 1997, he represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale.