Jeff KOWATCH
Jeff Kowatch, born in California in 1965, moved to Belgium fifteen years ago after working in New York for ten years. He develops a colourist’s painting style influenced by the great American abstractionists, from Mark Rothko to Brice Marden and, as far as technique is concerned, by the great Flemish painters, Rembrandt in particular, whose linseed oil recipes he has reappropriated, which give his painting a particular effect of depth and transparency, typical of the glazes of the North.
Man Jok is the Korean name given to Jeff Kowatch during his initiation into Zen meditation in the 1990s. It means “Stillness of Plenitude”, a state Jeff Kowatch seeks in his life and in his work.
“Jeff Kowatch’s research into world music is as demanding as it is original. Sometimes thunderous and ferocious, sometimes delicate in its polyphony. A world of light that evokes both the late Monet and his enchanting water lilies and the mystical Rothko, who fills his fields of pure colours with the diversity of a world dedicated to the spiritual alone. The same breath blows through the jubilant assumption of the luxuriant pastels and the calm meditation of the large paintings where the forms find their balance.”
Michel Draguet, excerpt from Plénitude et mascare colorées, 2018
Between 2018 and 2021, Jeff Kowatch used two techniques to create his works: oils on canvas and “drawings”, with oil sticks on aluminium.
Used in parallel, these two techniques are rooted in the same practice of superimposing layers and colours over a long period of time (up to three years of continuous work for some of the works exhibited).
However, the impressions they give off seem to be opposite: large glazes on canvas full of inward reflection and padded silences on the one hand, and drawings full of ardour and energy on the other.
Presentation of the work exhibited in the winery
Acquisition date: 2021
Exhibited in the storage area
Que Seurat Seurat, 2019
Oil Sticks on Dibond, H 235 x W 190 cm
