Philip Verbruggen was born in Ostend, Belgium in 1960. He
studied photography and film at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Gand, Belgium.
What is immediately striking about the work of Philip Verbruggen is the
anthropomorphic approach he uses. The human characteristics that he projects on
animals are properties that he found on the edge of the (human) society.
Verbruggen collects those elements from sado-masochists,
mercenaries, owls, prostitutes, junkies, etc.
For his paintings he stylizes his figures based on pictures
and places them in a new setting that refers to the human qualities he has given
to the animal.
At his sculptures and dioramas Verbruggen makes use of
existing images of animals he costumized; He paints them and adds elements to
it. The added elements he collects from the world of heraldry, the medieval
alchemists, tattoos, military emblems, and contemporary iconography, etc
...
At his images is the so-called sense of realism that the
viewer can convince the SM pigs, rabbits murderous, suicidal dogs really exist
on booze addict cats. The dioramas of a large three-dimensional understanding,
mounting is done with meticulous precision and is therefore the whole (from a
fictional world) is really about. We see a world where man himself is not in
sight, only the human qualities that the animals have gemaakt. Verbruggen makes
the animals more humane not only by projection of human characteristics to
animals, but also because they to depict a human decor. If art is a reflection
of the zeitgeist than Philip Verbruggen holds the mirror in hand.
