Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck says he “seeks to create a form of visual fiction that delivers a moment of wonder, silence and introspection.” That would certainly be the result with any of his life-size, surrealistic, monochrome sculptures.

This work is called My bed a raft, the room the sea, and then I laughed some gloom in me (2019, 400 x 400 x 114 cm, polyester, polyurethane, steel, polyamide, epoxy, wood, coating.)

In this work, a girl is asleep in a bed that hovers above a raft, which floats on a lily-pond. The floating sensation is commonly associated with the onset of sleep, he says. “By the side of the bed are books, candy, a flashlight, a glass of water and sleeping pills. Butterflies flutter about, emblems of mortality and transience.”

“I united the notions of ‘gloom’ with that of laughter in the rhyming title of this work,” he said in an interview, “because sleeping and dreaming are not unilaterally positive. A dream can be funny and light-hearted, but it can also unlock the dark world of the nightmare.”

See Hans Op de Beeck’s extensive portfolio on his website, here.