M HKA Ensembles

° 1950

Born in Eindhoven (NL), lives in Einhoven (NL), lives in Berlijn (DE).

Henk Visch is mainly active as sculptor, draughtsman and graphic artist. He has been exhibiting his sculptures since the beginning of the 1980s. Throughout his entire oeuvre, he works with a great range of materials and forms, and he makes both figurative and abstract work treating a variety of themes. In the titles he uses, as well, there is no single line: it goes from ‘untitled’ to very poetic and philosophical titles in English or German. Visch sees the title as identical to the sculpture or image. Titles belong to the work like the proper name belongs to its owner. They are identical. It says nothing about it. So while the titles sometimes appear to give us some indication of how to perhaps direct our thoughts, in the end their effect is rather confusing: one cannot find anything in there that one can the find in the work of art. According to Visch, the story of how a work was conceived can equally be of no explanatory help. In part this is so because he himself does not always know how a work comes to be; the subconscious inevitably has its say here. For Visch, the (his)story of a sculpture is always created anew by virtue of a viewer seeing it. Inevitably, it is up to us to bring meaning to the work. At the heart of Visch’s sculptures lie memories, dreams, impressions and associations.