Correspondances #2 - Ronny Delrue

“Through the format of the letter and the correspondence, Delrue implements his stance with regard to the role of contemporary drawing as a valid generator of artistic languages and as a humble, yet effectively poetic alternative to the virtual circulation of digital images between the communication systems that surround us.” – Ory Dessau, art critic

“The unique character and strength of Ronny Delrue’s work are the result of his intense search for the essence of Being. […] In a highly meticulous, almost obsessive way, he explores the sensitive fault line between control and loss of control. The process, the path, the quest is of fundamental importance to this exploration. The quest is not idiosyncratic, it is not inward, it allows room for dialogue with others, like a mirror image in which the encounter occurs, as in a crossover of minds.” – Carine Fol, artistic director CENTRALE for Contemporary Art, Brussels

“What is more beautiful than the circle left on a piece of paper by a coffee cup, even if an algorithm can produce a lifelike imitation? What is even lovelier is the artists’ ideas, the exchange, the noise, the geographical and cultural differences, the slowness, the simplicity, the banality, the trace, the moment, the text, the language, the distance, the ideas, the powerlessness.” – Philippe Van Cauteren, artistic director S.M.A.K., Ghent

In recent years, Ronny Delrue (*1957) corresponded with six artists namely: Martin Assig (Germany), Salam Atta Sabri (Iraq), Roger Ballen (South Africa), Sanjeev Maharjan (Nepal), Mithu Sen (India) and Christine Remacle (Belgium). Through exchanges in the form of drawings, letter fragments and collages, among other things, this publication not only explores the encounters between artists with different geographical backgrounds and cultural attitudes; it also looks at Delrue’s own oeuvre from a new angle.

Ronny Delrue is a painter, but first and foremost an artist for whom drawing is a core activity. For him, drawing is a way of thinking, a state of being. For this project a conscious decision was made to send the letters by post, as opposed to the swift exchange of digitally scanned documents. Correspondances is an ode to slowness and a tribute to human acts, in which representation becomes the language of the encounter.

Text in English, French and Dutch.