If we can define camp as a re-evaluation of a culture’s trash marked by excess, risk, blatant honesty and dustbin glamour than we are well on our way of illuminating some aspects of Michiel Ceulers (°1986) work.
The Belgian born (b. 1986, Waregem), Ghent Academy (KASK) and Amsterdam Rijksakademie trained artist, indulges himself in the pleasure of freely exploring the myriad opportunities that reside in the traditions of painting and sometimes those of sculpture. Unburdened so it seems; and yet also precarious. Messy, with goo-like elements and even trashy sometimes. Definitely anti-aesthetic such as the painting entitled internationale Gemeinschaft für gegenseitige Hilfe (2017 – 2020) or the sculpture entitled ‘Bereits Katzen werden an die Spitze getrieben / Silvio Gessel in Front of the Money Dressed as a Dut...’ (2020). But there is also bright yellow. And there is glitter: the shimmer, the revel, even the frivolous and dirty decorative such as in the work The return of the dead mother with new problems (2020). (...)
