What does the perfect courtier, Gentleman or Lady look like today? With a series of society figures, the Belgian artist Tom Woestenborghs elaborates on this fascinating genre of visual culture.
Within the domestic wings, Tom Woestenborghs records the final finery of his characters before they enter the arena of a party. The artist has majestically captured that threshold moment, the expectation of what is to come. It is a cocktail of desires and projections with a slightly repressed tension. Will it soon be possible (with 'les autres') to fulfill the formal and unspoken codes? Will it be a 'paradis' or rather 'l'enfer? Can we ever live up to society's expectations at all? Or, ourselves? Similarity plays a role in these portraits - anyways, but that is subordinate to the human condition that the artist wishes to portray.