Thierry Grootaers lives and works in the suburban surroundings of Liège.This  context is at least … puzzling:under the seemingly sleeping surface lies urbanistic chaos, wild accumulationof construction layers, disorder.

To quote Tom Waits: “Dreams are not broken here, they are walking with alimb”.

Thierry observes this suburban cityscape during his walks with his dogJefke and transforms them in ‘haunted dwellings’ on his canvas. Suburbanvoodoo? The banality of everyday surroundings is frozen in time and space andgets an eerie, somewhat spooky connotation. Houses lose windows and doors andbecome monolithic places of discomfort instead of ‘homes’. Faces are blurred, sketchy,deprived of individuality. Cars as traces of human activity are reduced tocarcasses or relics of a past era: industrial dinosaurs. People on bicycles puta lot of effort to move forwards but they seem to forget that they are on ahome trainer: immobility rules. An old Esso-trailer stands as another remnantof a vanished civilization. However, there is hope: the colours are vivid andjump in your face. Even more: there is humour in the observation of humanactivity and the human biotope. Somebody modelled his mailbox as an exact copyof his home. Attributes of everyday life (Cara pils, Jupiler, car wrecks, pinup, cleaning product…) are scattered in the room at random. The visit to hisfriend “Chez Benjamin” is simultaneously dark and heartwarmingly compassionate.This friction between observing and participating, between criticizing andbeing compassionate is the main theme in “I Walk the Line”: the ever-failing Sisyphuseffort to walk straight in a David Lynch universe where the surface hides somany dangerous tensions and pleasant temptations. Refrain?? Give in???

An axe can be used to build or to destroy… The choice is up to you.

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