First published: Summer 2000
The Forest of Soignes, the green lung of Brussels, has long been Jephan de Villiers' source of inspiration and material. A deep sympathy for forests that have been brutally felled around the world, a sickly childhood spent in the confines of his room with a tree glimpsed through the window as his only horizon, a love of everything that the wind blows away with no hope of return, these emotions and experiences partly explain the artist's special affinity for the detritus of the plant world.
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De Villiers is acutely sensitive to his working environment and it seems that a degree of darkness and privacy is an essential condition for the conception of this embryonic world waiting to blossom in the light. Whilst living in London his studio was in a basement, in Brussels it was in an attic, and now in Jolymont it is under the shadow of the trees.
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This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #31
