Antoine Roegiers
b. 1980, Braine l’Alleud, Belgium
The Mocking Laugh
2024
Oil on canvas
65 x 81 cm (25 5/8 x 31 7/8 in.)
Provenance
The artist's studio.
Description
Antoine Roegiers was born in Belgium in 1980. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, from which he graduated with honors in 2007 and received the Roger Bataille Foundation Prize. In 2012, he received the Yishu 8 prize, which allowed him to complete a three-month residency in Beijing. Roegiers' practice combines drawing, painting and video art in highly detailed works that reflect his study and admiration of ancient painters, particularly those of the Flemish and Dutch schools. In his work, Roegiers infuses the ancient tradition of figurative painting with contemporary sensibilities and technologies, drawing the viewer into fantastical and strange worlds, rich in symbolism, which have a timeless quality whilst reflecting themes relevant today.
He has held solo exhibitions across Europe, including France, Belgium, Switzerland, China and the United States, and his works are regularly featured in group exhibitions and art fairs.
'The Mocking Laugh' is part of the ongoing series, 'In the Shadow of the Clouds', described by the artist as 'a pictorial narration': creating an imagined, quasi-apocalyptic world which can be seen as an allegory for preoccupations of contemporary society, namely the climate crisis and political instability. The tale told through this series unfolds in each painting, following two characters who wake up in the aftermath of a big carnival to find that the world is devoid of humans. Journeying through an unsettling landscape, they encounter fantastical figures and situations rich in symbolism, such as a skeleton collecting carnival masks, a strange aircraft, and a devastating storm which causes huge wildfires.
In 'The Mocking Laugh', the scene introduces a pack of dogs, friends to the humans, who are trying to rescue the last remaining masks for their masters. This painting shows the frustration of these animals as the mask is consumed by the flames, which has also destroyed so much of the landscape around them.
This painting reveals just one corner of the world that the artist shows us in this series. Although created by him, Roegiers explains that the series is open for interpretation and non-linear; he does not intend for each painting to be considered in a strictly chronological way, emphasising instead that this world – like ours – is unpredictable and flexible, that each painting is an opportunity for discovery for each viewer.
He has held solo exhibitions across Europe, including France, Belgium, Switzerland, China and the United States, and his works are regularly featured in group exhibitions and art fairs.
'The Mocking Laugh' is part of the ongoing series, 'In the Shadow of the Clouds', described by the artist as 'a pictorial narration': creating an imagined, quasi-apocalyptic world which can be seen as an allegory for preoccupations of contemporary society, namely the climate crisis and political instability. The tale told through this series unfolds in each painting, following two characters who wake up in the aftermath of a big carnival to find that the world is devoid of humans. Journeying through an unsettling landscape, they encounter fantastical figures and situations rich in symbolism, such as a skeleton collecting carnival masks, a strange aircraft, and a devastating storm which causes huge wildfires.
In 'The Mocking Laugh', the scene introduces a pack of dogs, friends to the humans, who are trying to rescue the last remaining masks for their masters. This painting shows the frustration of these animals as the mask is consumed by the flames, which has also destroyed so much of the landscape around them.
This painting reveals just one corner of the world that the artist shows us in this series. Although created by him, Roegiers explains that the series is open for interpretation and non-linear; he does not intend for each painting to be considered in a strictly chronological way, emphasising instead that this world – like ours – is unpredictable and flexible, that each painting is an opportunity for discovery for each viewer.
