Mathieu Bassez

MATHIEU BASSEZ (Ghent, 1969).
Untitled.
Oil on canvas.
Signed.
Measurements: 200 x 100 cm; 220 x 120 cm (frame).

Everyone has a passion. If, like the artist Mathieu Bassez, you are obsessed by the unusual, perhaps that has also taken you to Japan, earned you a master's degree in Oriental Philology (Japanese cultural history and literature) and made you one of the youngest singers of Bach arias, traveling at the age of 11 with a world-famous orchestra. An eternal student, thirsty for life and knowledge, he believes that "a true artist has to learn and observe, to delve into all the great questions of life". Bassez grew up in Ghent, Flanders, birthplace of the Flemish primitives, as well as Van Eyck, Rubens and Breughel. He began painting in his teens, but it was at university, after writing a thesis on Utamaro, the 19th century Japanese painter who specialized in scenes of everyday life (the floating world), that his interest in art intensified. This culminated in his painting studies at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, where he was the only foreigner in his class. "My time in Japan taught me a lot about true human emotions, which are expressed in a totally different way than in Western society, but nevertheless have the same intensity," he says. Through a bold blend of Zen and Baroque, he creates an extremely fragile balance between Asian purification and European Renaissance. In a return to his roots, Bassez works with finely woven, handmade linen from a century-old Flemish company. Painted with a thin layer of oil paint, the end result has the softness of a painting by the old masters. Each painting has an extraordinary detail, inviting the viewer to come closer, touch the canvas and enter into it. Beyond the techniques of the old masters, his contemporary subjects provide a visual impact that can be compared to a gunshot in the middle of a classical music concert.