Now almost 29 years ago Belgian artist Zjos Meyvis put an enormous tree in the exhibition space of Parbleu. On that occasion I wrote the following text:

Zjos Meyvis (Kruibeke, 1950) prefers to work with natural materials, in and with nature. The constant here is to bind and especially to connect. It becomes a ritual in itself: repeating connections over and over again. It is the natural execution of an age-old principle, as a counterbalance to “a time in which connections are made with satellites and fibre optic cables”.

His sculptures are diverse in appearance, but all have the character of a totem. It is not without reason that an important source of inspiration is the speech of Seattle, chief of the Suquamish in 1854, from which Meyvis particularly points out the following statements: “What happens to the earth, soon happens to the children of the earth” and “I am part of the earth”.

Meyvis is always looking for the meaning of the self in the cycle of global life.

A version of the speech of Chief Seattle can be found here.

New work by Meyvis from his series of ‘Yards’ will be shown in the group exhibition “VERY WELL. And you?” at BREED in Genk, Belgium from Sunday 28 February to Sunday 28 March. More information on that exhibition can be found here (in Dutch).