Freedom within the framework.
Catherine Vanhullebusch’s practice moves between careful intention and chance. Each work takes shape slowly, through painting, tearing, folding and layering, until something unexpected settles into balance.
“In art, there are no limits except the ones I set myself. Much of my work is noticing them, and moving them.”
“For years I believed that if I thought hard enough and prepared carefully enough, I would arrive at the right answer. Perfectionism took me far. It also left little room for surprise.
When I began to paint, I chose a different way of working. Most decisions are deliberate, but sometimes the paper tears where it wants to, or a fold lands slightly off. Then I decide: undo it, or let it stay. More and more often, I let it stay.”
Colour before composition.
Before composing a painting, Vanhullebusch paints every sheet of paper by hand. Some sheets remain calm and even; others are pushed towards marbled passages, traces and subtle transitions. No two sheets are ever alike.
Thin Japanese paper on raw canvas.
Once the paper has dried, the composition begins: which sheets to tear, fold or layer, and which to leave almost untouched. The paper is so thin that, once attached, its fibres almost merge with the raw canvas. In some places, the canvas shows through the paper. What remains is not a layer on top, but a single surface.
Traces of a search.
The folds, torn edges and small irregularities are not flaws. They are evidence that something has been made by hand. Every painting carries the memory of experiment, doubt, discovery and deliberate choice.
The studio, Brussels · Photos: Ellen van den Bouwhuysen
“I often describe my work as the fruit of dirty hands and countless failed experiments.”
Each title holds a contradiction. It begins with a perfectly reasonable ambition and ends with an absurd excuse: a reminder to take life, and ourselves, a little less seriously.
They grow from a long-standing fascination with the gap between who we think we are and who we actually are. Rational and consistent in intention, contradictory in practice: the titles live in that gap.
The same tension lives in the material itself, fragile paper against sturdy canvas, and in the person looking at it.
- I’d do pilates if my excuses weren’t so flexible
- I’d be certain if I trusted my doubts
- I’d stay focused if distractions didn’t throw parties
- I’d choose water if rosé didn’t blush like that
Leaving the studio.
From that moment, the work no longer belongs only to the artist. It is completed through the act of looking, in the hope of leaving enough space for others to recognise a little of themselves in it.