Jef Van Grieken was born in Herenthout in 1950. He studied at the Academy of Antwerp from 1967 to 1969, engraving at the Academy of Mechelen from 1969 to 1973 and free graphics at the Higher Institute of Antwerp from 1973 to 1976. He completed this intense training with study trips to Yugoslavia (1976), Brazil (1983), the Far East (1988), Patagonia and Mexico (1988/1989), Colombia and Venezuela (1992) – each trip informing and shaping his practice. Later, he would teach subsequent generations at the Academy of Louvain from 1973 to 1976, and at the Academy of Mechelen from 1976 onwards.
Artistically, although Van Grieken’s style has evolved considerably, a thematic consistency can be found in dark, sombre, one might even say morbid, themes. Gloominess is never addressed head on by what is shown, but rather indirectly by what is absent. Depictions of withered branches, castle ruins and dilapidated mining installations convey a sense of demolition, abuse, absence and death.
Highly deconstructed at first, such depictions grew more realistic following his study trip to Brazil in 1983. However, their atmospheric nature is retained, and his images have a subversive character conferring on them an almost magical edge.
Johan Van Cauwenberge summarised Van Grieken’s process and approach as follows: ‘He observes the spaciousness, feels and approaches the environment like a surveyor, chooses and selects what impresses him most; then he draws and constructs in his head the image he wants to make of it. Only then does the real work begin; that which makes the studio silent when a wafer-thin layer of fabric starts to fill the empty sheet or canvas with an image that some will deny in retrospect that it was made by a human hand.’
Van Grieken’s work has travelled the world via various exhibitions: The Belgian House, Cologne; Lectures & Demonstrations at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., 1986; exhibition at the International Development Bank and the Brazilian-American Cultural Center, Washington D.C., 1991; Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2000; overview exhibition at the Antoon Spinoy Cultural Centre, Mechelen, 2000; the Curaçao Museum, Willemstad, 2002; the De Vuyst gallery, Lokeren, 1980-1993; Galerie Van Campen & Rochtus, and ‘t Scoon Huys, Antwerp, 1994-present; Galerie Albert 1er in Brussels, 2020.
His contributions to the arts have been acknowledged with the following prizes: first prize for Young Belgian Graphics (1978); the Grote Prijs Kortenberg and the first prize for drawing ‘Belgica-150’ (1980); laureate of the Biennale for Drawing in Nuremberg, Germany (1983).
Monographs have been written to accompany some of his milestones. In 1983, the Lannoo publishing house published a first monograph on his work. In the autumn of 2000, to mark his 50th birthday, the city of Mechelen organised a major retrospective exhibition in the Cultural Centre A. Spinoy, and a second extensive monograph was published: De Getekende Stilte, written by Johan Van Cauwenberge. A third book was published by P publishers in Leuven, which gives an overview of Van Grieken’s pastels and acrylic paintings from 2000 to 2010. Pandora-books published a critical catalogue of his graphics in 2014.
