Theys Yvan

Yvan Theys was a Belgian artist who was born in 1936 in Marke and who died in 2005 in Warcoing (Pecq). He was a painter, draftsman, graphic artist and sculptor. Education at Sint-Lucas in Tournai, where he had contact with Dodeigne, among others. Became a teacher there in 1959. After an abstract initial period, he soon sought his inspiration from the great masters of art history, Van Eyck, Rubens, Picasso, Fauvism, Expressionism. Also underwent influences from the Cobra. From 1962 his work contributed to the emergence of the New Figuration in Flanders. Prize of Rome in 1964.  The great freedom and the non-stylish character of his work put him in a marginal position. From 1970 he acquired a more international reputation with his typical male-female relationship as the main human theme. Lively color contrasts in unmixed paint and an ever tighter line management bring about the expressive power of his works. From the press: 'Formally he translates his imaginary world with characters, a kind of puppet figures, in a contemporary setting, left to their impulses and passions. The caricatured faces of the figures, evoked above all by large, elongated eyes, create a tragic atmosphere. Especially fear, tensions are central to the male-female relationship that Y.T. sketches us,” and “Hard colors and soft shapes, soft curves and angular patterns are part of the force field in which Y.T. juggles contradictions: lightning strikes through a space in black velvet. Snakes pierce the air of a salon.' (F. De Vree, 1993)  as a sculptor, designer of expressionist wooden sculptures that were subsequently painted. Work in the Museums in Ostend, Kortrijk, among others. Mentioned in the Lexicon of West Flemish visual artists i, in BAS I and Two centuries signatures of Belgian artists. (Piron)