Paul Michiels

Paul J.J. Michiels’ work covers various bases, with drawings, paintings, graphic work and installations either large or small, in which childhood, vulnerability and decay take centre stage. Michiels waywardly juggles all these art forms in order to shape his inner world of demons, fantasies and sensations. This is not escapism, but on the contrary a conscious quest for confrontation with anxieties, sexual desires and ethic limits.

The artist assembles objets trouvés, dilapidated toys, old pictures, objects that once possessed an inner symbolism, into unnerving installations. The new contexts he carefully creates are layered. They navigate between innocence and perversion, between a sense of security and an implicit threat. But when taking a closer look the cute dolls and cuddly toys manning Paul Michiels’ fragile compositions are not that endearing. Their heads are shaven, they are missing arms and legs, they are knocked about and weather-beaten. The spectator is ill at ease when beholding their grubby little faces and injured bodies, which are often tied up, maimed or gagged. They pierce the illusion of naive innocence to make room for a rather bleak and desolate reality.

Although Michiels’ creations may initially seem ch...

Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium