Bart Lodewijks - Calcutta Drawings

English / Dutch / Image archive

Bart Lodewijks - Gaasbeek Drawings
A short story about a chalk drawing that runs from the intersection of Vijverselenweg and Rooststraat in Lennik through to the sphinxes on Oudenakenstraat 23 in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw (Belgium).

DSC6501 ‘Your drawing is difficult to read. It looks like arrows that point to the left and to the right,’ says an older woman.

DSC6511 ‘All the corners are missing,’ she says. ‘Do you know what that means?’

DSC6536 As I draw, pieces of the facade crumble off, but the missing corner in the bottom right is my doing.

DSC6557 With its orange roof, the farm stands out, and as of today the chalk drawings are part of the scene.

DSC6566 There must come a point at some point when the farmstead collapses on its own. In the instant before that happens, I imagine it being momentarily still.

DSC6559 The pasture, the facade, the roof, the fence, the fields and the surrounding countryside are divided into planes and lines. The drawing fits in as if it were always a part of it all.

DSC6574 The chalk surfaces are surprisingly diffuse and light. There’s no indication that drawing them was such a difficult task, in which over a hundred chalk sticks were demolished.

DSC6591 The lines of chalk absorb the dampness from the bricks. They transform into a gummy substance similar to the oily clods of clay on a ploughed field.

DSC6602 The broken stone testifies to the end of a working life. The silence on the property is deafening.

DSC6598 The concrete post is all that remains of the washing line. In the past smocks, aprons and sheets would hang in the breeze here and life revolved around this place.

DSC6626 ‘The sphinxes not only guard my house, they protect the fantasy world,’ says the ancient owner of the house.

DSC6620 I carefully stroke their moss-green coat. It would be exaggerating to claim that we talked to one another. In any event, the sphinxes do not say anything back and leave me to do as I please.

© Bart Lodewijks 2019

*This project is part of the exhibition Feast of Fools. Bruegel rediscovered kasteel van Gaasbeek, Belgium