Berlinde De Bruyckere: Romeu my deer

This new artist's book by Berlinde De Bruyckere presents for the first time her recent sculptures and drawings concerned with the human figure and the deer Berlinde de Bruyckere is a sculptor from Ghent in Belgium, whose wild and sensual figures are formed using a melange of natural materials such as animal pelts, hair, wood and wax. In her recent works Berlinde De Bruyckere worked with a professional dancer, Romeu, as model, defining his movements and poses and developing her own sculptural choreography. The figures are faceless, malformed and fragmentary. At first their shape seems familiar although their forms resist interpretation, offering a disturbing vision of fragility and suffering. Alongside the human body the deer plays a prominent role in De Bruyckere's new work: the deer is a majestic ambassador of nature, sometimes present as flesh-coloured antlers masterfully rendered in wax. The photographer Mirjam Devriendt shows the fragile and vulnerable sculptures in a unique setting, an abandoned house in the old town of Ghent. The accompanying text by Caroline Lamarche reads like a fairy tale about the life and work of a sculptor and her urge to create. "Romeu 'my deer'" is the most personal book of De Bruyckere. It recounts the story of intense memories, and describes the process of creation." (Caroline Lamarche).