They say that
Belgian artist Patrick van Caeckenbergh lives like a hermit. But this is not the way he perceives it, like
he mentioned in an interview some time ago. He does lead a very solitary life in a small Flemish village, but his
fellow villagers are extremely fond of him.
This works both ways, as becomes clear every September when he organizes
a procession through the village, a
homage to the village and its inhabitants.
To stay close to the most
recent theme he is working on: Patrick van Caeckenbergh is an avid collector,
which manifests itself by the gathering of knowledge. Knowledge about himself
and knowledge about the earth and life in general has his preference. In trying
to grasp what the world is about, he is a voracious reader of popular
scientific books and magazines.
When he finds
images of interest while consulting encyclopedias, atlases or other means of
reference, he cuts them out and arranges
them in similar catagories after which he assembles his collection of cut-outs
in collages, sculptures and books crafted by hand.
In this way he
collected images of all kinds of parrots and created a magnificent collage
titled “The oracle of parrots from the Gods”. I
made a scan of the collage depicted below which does not do it much
justice. But when you take a good look
you can see an enormous quantity of parrots quietly sitting on the shore or
fluttering around.
