BASILE BOON b. 1986

After a few years of theater and a Master's degree in architecture at La Cambre, Basile Boon quickly turned to materials. A vital need to work with his hands, to be able to build, beyond the pleasure of drawing or designing. He began by studying leather techniques to create a small leather goods collection, before opting for ceramics, which he believes offers incredible freedom of form and format. With clay, he found his medium, a material that enables him to create objects, or small edifices, that are both solid and fragile, blending his architectural dreams with those of his childhood. In 2021, Juliette Seydoux brought Basile's research to light with his first solo show: Chaos and Desire.

Today, his work operates like a catharsis, bringing to the surface in a very factual way all that was buried deep inside him from an early age. Without falling strictly speaking into the realm of autofiction, Basile Boon proceeds by assembling or superimposing elements of classical mythology, archaeology or even religion, crossed with moments from real life, thereby writing in the earth and with time a veritable three-dimensional epic. He likes nothing more than to tell stories, which he sketches out on paper before transferring them to large-scale frescoes in glazed ceramics with gold highlights.

For his made-to-measure works, a meeting is essential, as is intimacy with the site and its occupants. In the tradition of portrait painting or ancient tapestries, Basile Boon's bas-reliefs tell the story of those who will live in their presence. The result is a dialogue that once again conjures up imagery from the past mixed with signs of life and the present, in a kind of intergenerational comic strip, a perfect marriage of art in all eras.

In addition to his prolific creation of objects and sculptures, and his large-scale murals rich in symbolism, Basile Boon has also been building his "Maison dorée", a personal temple erected column after column, since his early days in ceramics. Like a modern-day Facteur Cheval, he is committed to building this endless work, which follows him from studio to studio, a quest for life and art, an individual Odyssey on earth.

- Text by Jean-Marc Dimanche