A Walk through a Landscape in the Making
It seems as if Lode Laperre’s oeuvre has been passed down through generations. It has the aura of fragments from another era, as if they came from archaeological artefacts from the distant past, deeply engraved by the ravages of time. It is a work that carries memories of a time when the climate carved deep grooves, shaped by the hand of time itself.
The works that Lode creates are reminiscent of the bark of the sequoia, snowed in during the Ice Age, shifted by tectonic plates and spewed out by volcanoes. They have been affected by the fierceness of lava, extinguished by water, washed ashore by the turbulent seas. They bear the traces of nomads who used them as shields against sandstorms, traded over the centuries on the Silk Roads, lost in anonymity, buried by rocks and finally freed by erosion, only to be covered once more by a blanket of lichens.
Up close, they resemble hides being curbed by the tanner. From afar, they refer to oriental landscapes, seen from a divine point of view — far beyond the winter of life, bleeding in splendour, soothing the gaze of the many pilgrims who pause for a moment before continuing their journey on foot.
Lode Laperre’s work is resurrected from death, doomed to survive.
Wim Lambrecht
