Ben Willikens

Ben Willikens paints constructed spaces that give the viewer the impression that he or she has been there before; the long halls, loggias and bare walls seem strangely familiar. It is hard to tell whether these are freshly plastered raw structures or the empty rooms of an old building just before its demolition. Willikens’ painting gives the impression of greatly enlarged architectural drawings taken from an unknown treatise on architecture. The artist illustrates a catalogue of facades and empty spaces “enclosures that have been emptied by the storms of history” says Willikens. They are all the spaces of memory that we cannot be enter. Willikens as director of an illustrious theatre whose painted architecture remains as empty as that of a stage set.