Bram Demunter: ancient alligator swimming from the sea to the river

Abstract

"Tim Van Laere Gallery presents its first solo exhibition by Bram Demunter, Ancient Alligator Swimming from the Sea to the River. Anaximander drew one of the first world maps based on a subdivision by water. Since then, our worldview has continued to change, but the seas, oceans, and rivers have always played an important role. The mystical value of water and all the secrets of its unknown depths have inspired many stories, myths, and sagas. For this show, Bram Demunter was also inspired by different stories about the sea, the ocean, and its rivers. Demunter understands the lure of the sea and regularly looks at the seas of Ensor and Turner (who never ventured offshore). As in any good epic or hero's tale, the sea plays a major role, though hardly a positive one. Herman Melville's sea teaches us about evil, pride, and punishment, while the incredible floods in the Gilgamesh epic and later in the Bible make us shudder just thinking about the sea. At the centre of the exhibition is the work Ancient Alligator Swimming from the Sea to the River, which depicts several islands with all kinds of human activities. All the other canvasses, with different islands and populations, spring from this work. Bram Demunter's oeuvre is about us, humankind, and the place we occupy in the world, the myths we create about ourselves, the stories and visual cultures that spring from us, and the changes we bring about in nature and our world view. Demunter digs through our history, making new connections that reach out from obscure stories, forgotten symbolism, Christian iconography, myths and sagas, to contemporary events and marginal anecdotes from literature."-- Provided by publisher.