Stefan Serneels - Schetsboeken 1-6

On the sketchbooks of Stefan Serneels

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It’s an old fantasy: that one day we could hear everything that is going on in the heads of others. A collective revelation of sorts.

All masks off.

On the one hand though, let’s hope that this fantasy never comes true; we definitely wouldn’t survive it. On the other hand, maybe we just might. At last, all those murky heads would be aired. And we would acknowledge what we actually already knew, that we are indeed darkrooms.

I’m not using the word darkroom for no reason. The word, too, came to mind when viewing the work of Serneels.

Year after year, for many years, he kept a diary of his head. At least, that’s how we could interpret it.

It goes without saying that this diary, with all its sketches, is not merely an account of one’s tangible, recognizable daily existence. I rather see it as a chronicle of our unseen daily existence.

And also, and most importantly, I see how, in these sketches, the distinction between the two – the visible and invisible everyday, which I am presenting here as so seemingly self-evident – is blurred. And is obviously, at the same time, brought to the fore.

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Bernard Dewulf