Gérald Dederen
Born in 1957, lives and works in Brussels, Belgium
Gérald Dederen studied sculpture at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels (La Cambre) in the studio of Rik Poot until 1981 and at the Hoger Kunstonderwijs in the studio of Christian Nicaes (1982). In his own account of his development, the artist emphasizes the gradual transition "from figuration to the expression of the interiority of things"; he thus places his work in the wake of the experiments of lyrical abstraction. His predilection for exotic woods reinforces his approach in a very personal way through the variety of qualities that the material conceals. Gérald Dederen has been teaching at the Watermael-Boisfort Academy since 1985.
Working in the thickness of the material, using the ashen, natural blondness of the tree - or, on the contrary, disguising it with a dark or white stain to give more autonomy to the form - he gives us these robust, sensual sculptures which have gained in their own inflections, almost abstract, what they have lost in naturalism.