Work on paper ‘Stadspark’ by Frederik Lizen
Original work on paper by Belgian artist Frederik Lizen (Antwerp, 1986), also known as ‘En Plein Public’. This gouache and chalk on paper painting is part of Lizen’s extended Landscape Series of which 20 works are on view at Meteor Gallery.
Lizen is especially known for his large paintings on wooden panels, scathered across the city of Antwerp, commenting on today’s world. Intentionally he’s making passersby smile, ponder and interact with his work. The last five years, Lizen also wants to escape the concrete city, still observing and working outside, but this time in nature, in parks on beaches and on the countryside, distillating his surroundings into his work.
His former appartment being across the street of the Antwerp City Park, this monument designed by architect Eduard Keilig in 1876 has become one of his favourite workgrounds for this series. People who have visited the park before, will certainly recognize it in his works, with its big weeping willows, its pond with English bridge and romantic hideouts in the shade.
The work is in excellent condition and framed by Tom Van Camp frames.
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DETAILS:
Blade dimensions:
W: 27 cm
H: 21 cm
Weight: approx. 1 kilo.
Signed on the back by the artist
Material: gouache, chalk, paper
Price: €1200
Operating under his nom de plume ‘En Plein Public’ this Belgian artist Frederik Lizen (Antwerp, 1986) has put his name literally out there since 2014 with dozens of street works, all made on his favourite canvas: the grey areas of the city of Antwerp. With ‘Landscapes 2021-2025’ Lizen is now proving he can easily break through this usual workframe and interact not only with his homecity but also with the natural environment across the world.
You might have stumbled on Frederik Lizen’s work if you’re walking through the streets of Antwerp. From the facade of the M HKA Museum to a 150 meter long construction area across the city’s central station, his murals and larger than life wooden panels can be found scathered around the city, since 2014. Although he works mostly outside, Frederik doesn’t like to be called a ‘street artist’, he rather calls himself a ‘public painter’.
He put his graffiti spraycans on ice already years ago, but if there’s one thing Lizen hasn’t lost since his early heartthumping train hopping days, it’s his fast eye, scanning every city street he roams upon. Always looking left, right, up and down for his next canvas, a new opportunity, a blank paper in his open air atelier. It might be a nailed shut shopping window on a run-down street corner: if he stops, it’s there. The artist takes mental notes and some real photographs to study the place and it’s surroundings. What’s the idea that might be working here? What’s the hook that will make people stop, ponder and smile, even if they were previously only in a rush to work?
“To make a good work, I need an audience”, Lizen claims. Once painted, the work is not finished, not just yet. Most artists would shiver to their bones knowing one of their paintings is left outside in the pooring rain, let alone that some passerby would use a marker pen to scribble a message on it, but for Lizen these circumstances are only part of the process, leading up to the final work. In fact, he wants to start a dialogue between his work and it’s surroundings. “For me, the challenge is to incorporate these changes or add-ons again into the work”. With his critical and often humorous puns on the way his city, and by extension the world, is evolving with all it’s environmental and geopolitical problems, Frederik wants to stir a conversation. Often animals are the actors in his work, holding a mirror for us, the viewers. He tickles people to question his work, criticise it openly or post it on their socials as an in promptu time document of his work.
Only when the artist considers the work as finished, Frederik will try to persuade the owners so he can replace the panels and bring them into the shelter of his atelier or an art space. A new window An artist residence in the Arteventura finca near the Spanish town of Aracena Andalusia opened up a new window in 2021 for Lizen’s practice, with a series of smaller works on paper, made with chalk and gouache, a type of watercolor paint that can be applied in layers. Since that residency, Lizen takes his gouache and paper with him on summer travels, to paint a candid memory of the places he visited. At Meteor Gallery Frederik is showing about 20 of his Landscapes 2021-2025, a series of smaller gouache and chalk on paper works, made during 5 summers on various locations: from the Antwerp City Park over Estoril in Portugal to Krabi beach in Thailand. As a surplus, also the big street panel ‘New Born’ with a gigantic newborn calf in primary colours is on view, even visible from the street.
Although true to his own style, these colourful Landscapes works have a different presence. With little more than a few brush strokes, Lizen can set a cinematic scene, quickly recognisable as the city park’s big weeping willows or as Krabi beach with its typical colourful fishing boats. The dreamy feeling of an Indian summer is never far away. We invite you to discover all 20 works in our gallery. www.enpleinpublic.be
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