Thomas Van Walle
The following texts and images are excerpts of an exchange of letters between Thomas van Walle and Ruth Wiesenfeld.
Music
The Other World
The World that
Normally is Unseen
The premise
Being that
The Unseen World
Can be brought
Into View.
poem by Thomas van Walle
Thomas van Walle (°1984) is a visual artist, musician and architect based in Antwerp, Belgium. In his artistic practices the worlds of sound and image blend into each other to the extent that they become indistinguishable. Through series of drawings, paintings and etchings, he systematically explores how abstractions of everyday reality can be composed into new constellations. While in general these graphic compositions are guided by their potential to evoke imaginative worlds beyond their face value, some of them are specifically intended to function as graphic scores for musical compositions. His recent work is inspired by his daily commute to his musical and visual workshops in Brussels, a 40 minute train ride of metropolitan impressions that are condensed into micro-compositions jotted down into a pocket-sized notepad.
Ruth asks Thomas:
Could you also imagine the Other World to be an unheard one?
A key hole into my Creative Universe
I always want to make something that is impossible, that’s the most important thought mainly, when I start. It’s also about showing/ expressing the impossibility to represent the world. There is a lot of hope in making art, I think, you’re always trying and even your mistakes, your small mistakes get their own, new appearance.
letter by Thomas van Walle
DARE DARE Train Movement 09/2020 Graphic Score
Dv Train Movement 09/2020 Graphic Score
Actually, this questions reminds me of another poem I wrote 5 years ago, named Running Underground.
(…) The Other World for me is a world between thoughts and expression.
But as you say, it starts as an unheard one, like a black hole, black space.
Some time ago, before I became a music teacher, I used to work a lot in the port of Antwerp, and cardboard factories, in principal very ugly places, but in some way, I thought it was interesting, these places , with a lot of machines and anti-architecture, machine sounds.
Running Underground, monotype / pencil 2017
At the end of your letter you use the term creative universe. I really like that term, actually that’s my main goal, to create a universe of its own, by drawings, graphic scores, etchings, monotypes, music process, sketches, paintings, etc. When they are strong enough, and with the right composition, they can strengthen each other
Crossing points
Lost from some storm
We somehow missed
They seemed to drift
In an out our lives
Just like snowflakes
Sonic Sketches