Stan Weessies’ work ranges from painting to video and performance. One could - as he at times did so himself - compare his artistic practice with the chosen life of cynical philosophers and monks in times of the Byzantine Empire, who denied anything that related to morality, values, norms and reason by expressing themselves in extreme and apparent shameless behaviour: walking naked on the streets, peeing on bystanders and sleeping amongst stray dogs, all of which they did for ‘Christ’s sake’, and more importantly in the irrational search for a divine – and probably non-existing – answer. Turning a blind eye to society and its morals without the slightest accountability whatsoever. Be aware, an over-colored comparison, but one that happened to arise within Weessies’ romantic and nostalgic tendencies. Dirt, absurdity, intimacy and dominance are reoccurring qualities in his work, as he considers each work an outcome of actions that lack any form of reason, yet are they drained with a desperate longing for the ideal image. Something big and evangelic that can only exist in delirious fantasies. An itch - a very physical urge – to create is what keeps Weessies going against his better judgement. He simply wishes to surround himself with insane things in an apparent though very much questionable sane environment, that he can surrender himself to and laugh at - after all, Weessies ís aware of the fool he is. A clash: knowing the fact that everything he does within his artistic practice doesn’t necessarily bring value to a bigger picture and yet acting as if he believes - like the cynical philosophers and monks - in a divine answer. Pretending and acting alongside an even more evident sincerity in making.
© 2022 by Stan Weessies