The Belgium contemporary artist Rose Bracke received an introduction to abstract painting very early in her life from her artist father. As a painter he trained her to be familiar with his paintbrushes, tubes of oil paint and large surfaces of raw canvas and he learned her to speak and paint freely. Her attraction for color, textures and shapes guided and directed her to her studies in fashion design in Brussels as well as to abstract painting workshops at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. From working abstract oil paintings on large format canvases, she gradually turned to the practice of creating monotypes. At L’Usine in Brussels in her own studio, she works on monotypes by using a plexiglass plate and oil inks with a single press passage.
Within her visual work, she is not looking for meaning or significance. The starting point is always the blank surface of multiple natures. The image is constructed spontaneously and intuitive during the act of painting. It generally surpasses and surprises her. She can look at a drawn line, a texture, a density or a formal tension that she decides to keep and exploit, for a long time, thinking about the next step to come. The process does not develop from inspiration but more from a dynamic of expiration: internal traces of what she saw or what she felt or of what touched her directly physically, will find an expressive way with paint, ink, on canvas or paper. The image created is also open, multiple and relational. Everyone who looks at it can project their own meanings and thoughts on it. The image is enriched in the moment by the gaze of the other. Currently, she divides her available time in between a mental health practice with adolescents and her pictorial research, using the monotype technique. In her work as a clinical psychologist, she has the opportunity to animate photography and painting workshops with small groups of teenagers, in transitory breakdown of development
Rose Bracke did a master in clinical psychology, received a bachelor in fashion design and she studied at L’académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, St-Gilles in Brussels. Her work has frequently been on display in Belgium, Italy and Spain. Rose Bracke lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.
