The work reflects on how we are dealing with the fusion between our physical and virtual lives and how we experience this hybrid world nowadays. The creative process of the work involves a back and forth communication between digital drawing and analogue painting methods in an attempt to blur the line between the 2D and 3D space. The paintings show a fragment of the digital realm they are ‘taken’ from. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an imaginary world is presented as a new existing place. Painting these virtual worlds and thus creating them in the ‘real world’ questions our seemingly certain concept of reality and space.
Elise Willems earned her degree in Architecture from the University of LUCA school of arts before studying a degree Fine Arts at Sint-Lucas Antwerp. These architectural skills along with a strong interest in the digital realm are the inspiration for her artistic painting practice. Her paintings contain visual elements of computer-generated imagery. It showcases an environment with recognisable forms referenced from nature. Scale, form and texture of the digital objects in the paintings are taken out of a regular context.
'Entering the surface' reflects on how we are dealing with the fusion between our physical and virtual lives and how we experience this hybrid world nowadays. The creative process of the work involves a back and forth communication between digital drawing and analogue painting methods in an attempt to blur the line between the 2D and 3D space. The paintings show a fragment of the digital realm they are ‘taken’ from. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an imaginary world is presented as a new existing place. Painting these virtual worlds and thus creating them in the ‘real world’ questions our seemingly certain concept of reality and space.