100 Print

Aguila (Jan Gielens, 15th January 1937), artist and founder of the "probability reality", a new tendency in contemporary art. His works consists of oil paintings , drawings, monumental installations, conceptual architecture, naval design and computer art . Aguila studied visual and monumental art at the Higher Institute for Arts and Sciences in St Lucas, Brussels under such artists as Jos De Maegd and Maurits Van Saene. During the last year of his art education Aguila came to the conclusion that rather than focus on color, priority should be given to strong compositional elements and the contact the painting has with the environment, thus extending the composition of the work into the three dimensional environment. In 1974, Aguila was invited to exhibit his paintings at the University of Ghent and to give some conferences, also at other European universities. Former conservator of the Museum for Modern Art in Brussels, Mrs. Phil Mertens, became interested in Aguila's way of painting, and recognized in him the founder of a new tendency in contemporary art , called "The Multidimensional Transparent Art". Later on, Aguila was invited to work as a full time teacher and lecturer at Cool International School in Brussels 1977-1980, and from 1977-1999 at Universidad Las Colinas in Elche, Spain , where he was full time engaged teaching and giving conferences based on his know how on painting, conceptual architecture, and art . The painting classes were soon being called "The School of Ilicitis", called after Ilice, the ancient name for Elche. Ilicitis means City of Light. The campus of the University was constructed by Aguila and his students amongst the many palm trees, using very light structures and materials. The social facet of this cultural artistic movement, started by Aguila, is present in his work all over and the aggregation of the multiple facets and disciplines gives birth to a living monumental work of art called "A Creation from out the free will" , started 1977 and ongoing until at present. This monumental work of art is composed of multi disciplinary works of art, sculpture , installations, design, philosophy, politeia and architecture. The reasom why Aguila´s work and person is not known throughout the broader art world is due to the fact that some most influential groups wanted to get control over the work of the young artist, who himself did not want to loose his artistic freedom and freedom of research.