NICK ERVINCK | AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
NICK ERVINCK
BY PAULA SOITO

NICK ERVINCK (° 1981) graduated in 2003 from the KASK (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent) with a master’s degree in Mixed Media.
He then trained in computer modeling, sculpting, and working with materials such as polyester, plaster, and wood. After teaching at art academies in Tielt, Menen, and Kortrijk (2004-2012), he returned to the KASK to spend three years as a visiting professor. His work consists of large installations, handmade and 3D printed sculptures, ceramics, prints, drawings, lightboxes, and animated films.
Ervinck is fascinated by the “negative space” as he discovered it with classical sculptors such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. The finding that a “hole” in matter is such a young idea will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. As a child of his time, he plays a varying game between the physical and virtual world, using both classic and new craftsmanship (computers, 3D printing, and milling). From here, he explores in his own unique way classical themes such as a man (with a focus on his anatomy and the emergence of cyborgs), plants (especially their genetic manipulation), masks and animals, always starting from an (art) historical background that he cut with contemporary pop and sci-fi culture.
He has received several international prizes, including the Prix Godecharle (2005), The Fortis Young One’s Award (2006), the Provincial Prize for Fine Arts West Flanders (2006), and the Rodenbach Fund Award (2008).
In 2013 Ervinck also won the prestigious Merit CODA Award for his art integration IMAGROD.

In 2009 Ervinck was praised for WARSUBEC,
a monumental project created for the Zebrastraat cultural site in Ghent. Many public and private assignments also followed, including EGNOABER, Emmen; IMAGROD, Ostend; REWAUTAL, Sotogrande; LUCE, Amersfoort; TSENABO, Tielt; and WIBIETOE, Anderlecht.
In 2009 he moved to an old workshop and transformed it into an artist’s studio. He founded Studio Nick Ervinck in 2011.

His work has been acquired by art collectors around the world and shown in solo and group exhibitions at NRW-Forum Düsseldorf; Ars Electronics, Linz; MARTa, Herford; Paul Valéry Museum, Sète; Fenaille Museum, Rodez; Laboral, Gijon; Museum Beelden aan Zee, Scheveningen; Bozar, Brussels; Brakke Grond, Amsterdam; S.M.A.K., Ghent; Gallo-Roman Museum, Tongeren; Museum Dr. Guislain, Ghent; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels; Museum M, Leuven; the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent and the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp.

Outside Europe, Ervinck took his first steps with group exhibitions in UNArt Center, Shanghai; MOCA, Shanghai; Axiom, Tokyo; Oya Stone Mine, Tokyo; Northern Arizona University Art Museum, Flagstaff and Chamber, New York.

In 2019, at the request of the City Council of St. Petersburg, Florida, he was commissioned to create a public sculpture in bronze, OLNETOPIA. In 2020, he was asked by the Chinese government to create ALUNIK for the Shenzhen World Conventions & Exhibition Center in Shanghai.
In 2021, a large solo museum exhibition is planned for him in Häme Castle, organized by the National Museum of Finland. In addition to some 50 works inside and outside, a new monumental installation will also be presented here. A voluminous monograph will also be published in response to this exhibition.

Nick Ervinck lives in Lichtervelde with his wife Kaat and their three children, Lene, Ida, and Thor.

Paula Soito: Hello, Nick, Can you tell me about when your journey into the arts began? At what age did you first know you would become an artist?

Nick Ervinck: I’m sure it all started for any artist as you were born on this planet. I was addicted to Legos, and I think up to the age of 14, it was the only toy I ever asked for. I was always building. The only thing to get me outside in the summer was to play, build in the sandbox where I was lost for hours. Step by step, you come to an age where playing with toys seems childish. At around age thirteen, I was introduced to the computer. It was again, another addiction. Playing and ‘building’ games like SimCity, SimTower, PizzaTycoon, ThemePark, Settlers, etc… By the summer of age 15, I was getting up around noon and playing at night.

Art was never a topic in our home when I was growing up. I never visited museums in my youth.
I was often creative, but making the leap into art was certainly not easy. I started off studying economics, and fortunately for me, this subject soon lost its appeal. As a result, I was not the best student. The school didn’t interest me. But being introduced to the arts opened a whole new world—a world of interest where the school was suddenly not an obligation, but a joy. Architecture has always fascinated me, so it was my first choice when I switched to art school.

But the lessons on perspective theory didn’t interest me, and the scale models I made were not always feasible because I wanted to go beyond what was being offered to me in the course. In retrospect, I did develop spatial awareness by taking these classes, which I considered boring.

After a year, I switched to ceramics and graphic design. When I discovered software such as Photoshop, a whole new world opened up to me. I suddenly realized that it was possible to do a lot more with a computer than just play games. When I was 18, therefore, I looked for an art course where everything was allowed. A utopian idea, of course, but in fact, I ended up in a very multifaceted course. I studied 3D multimedia at Ghent Academy. There we studied subjects such as exhibition design, film, and photography. My focus was primarily on performance and video art, and I played around with computer effects. However, I didn’t really find my way until I switched into a Mixed Media course. There, I gradually found my feet.

P.S.: You are quite well-taught as an artist graduating with your master’s degree in Mixed Media from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent.
How did your studies prepare you for the style and medium you use now in your art? What or who drew you to your current style?

N.E.: I would say I did not learn to sculpt or work with a computer in school, but I learned to develop my own vision. The rest I learned step-by-step. I had a dynamic teacher, Danny Matthys, from whom I learned a lot. If work was in progress, he would secretly move a piece of it so that he could see whether the student noticed that something had changed. Was the student really focused, and did he or she see an improvement, or had the work suffered? That was our slightly playful method of discussing form, boundaries, and possibilities.
Another essential factor in this course was the interaction with other students. Every Monday morning, we had a round table discussion in which the students evaluated each other’s work and provided feedback. This greatly helped me mature and taught me how to formulate my vision and defend it.

I always had discussions with my teacher. In these discussions,
I had to choose between the virtual world (in his mind, a fast world) and the physical world (manually building my sculpture skill and knowledge felt like a slow process).

I kept believing that the physical was slow and virtual was fast. My learning came from playing with these two worlds, and after designing 3D prints for 2000 hours,
I learned that computer design is not always fast. On the contrary, a drawing is much more direct.

I think my current style and path has been shaped, of course, by a lot of influences. From artists working organics like Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth to Tony Cragg, Anish Kapoor, and Zaha Hadid to a new generation of artists experimenting with computer software.

Next to that is how my art changes by doing, for example, a big commission. It shapes my path and direction as an artist. But most of all, I think my will and ambition to make my own story, be original and take my own path help me create my own style.
Working with passion, moving between the digital and the physical studio, the creative process, among other things, and the process driven by a constant interaction between play and control has helped shape my style tremendously.

P.S.: How did your time as an art professor help contribute to your exploration and understanding of the arts?

N.E.: I think my time as an art professor helped by interacting with people. Not getting stuck into a personal story, but translating it to a more universal story. It was good to share my knowledge, passion, and ideas, which is what I still do today with my team while also engaging myself in the art world in general.

P.S.: You studied the classical sculptors, yet you combine that with the virtual world to gain a unique understanding of space and negative space as it pertains to your work. Can you tell us more about that?

N.E.: I often feel like the last of the Mohicans.
Here I am with one foot in the old world because I still make sculptures that stand on a pedestal, whereas I was actually born at just the right time to know how to use the computer as a tool. This disparity can give me a sense of dispossession. I’m too modern for a sculptor, and for the younger generation of artists, I’m too classic.
In 2009, I started doing work with Moore in the back of my mind. In Shanghai – in the Yuyuan Garden – I was really inspired by the whimsical structures of the rocks eroded by water. They reminded me of Moore, and I became obsessed with the fact that Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth were the first sculptors to work with negative space, with holes. Or at least we consider them as the first.
It is so strange that an idea that is so familiar and so logical today is actually not even a hundred years old.

I think this will be one of the obsessions I have for the rest of my life. My sculpture IKRAUSIM 2009 came out of my experience in Shanghai. It is a contemporary rock sculpture, inspired by both East and West, using the latest 3D printing techniques.
IKRAUSIM exists as a 2D print in a lightbox, as a 3D print, as digital animation and as stills from the animation. Each is a new perspective on a seemingly infinite form. Moore subtracted – chopping and carving – but I work the other way round, with a digital designing process: the virtual form isn’t set free from the physical matter but is a productive and generative principle.

P.S.: I love how you explain turning toward architecture, science and New Media for ways to express your art form in ways you had never seen. Can you tell us more about that?

N.E.: For me, life is about challenges. It is about thinking outside of the box. It is about dialogue between different worlds, between physical and virtual, between architecture and design, between Art & Science.
It is between handmade craftsmanship and digital handmade, between male and female, between square and round, between black and white, smooth and textured. It is between big and small. The fantastic thing as an artist is to jump into different worlds.

I collaborate with engineers from 3D print companies, but also with doctors, chocolate factories, or work on a commission for the Diamant sector. Art helps me to analyze and function in this crazy world. Looking at a different world lets me see with a fresh eye.
I have always been fascinated by how art has developed due to new materials and techniques. Somewhat disappointed at contemporary sculpture and its lack of renewal, I turned towards architecture, applied sciences, and New Media to elaborate a new language and compose forms and designs that were unthinkable in all those years before.
My aim is to let architecture and sculpture meet and explore the impossible realm by constantly pushing the limits of what we call ‘realistic.’

P.S.: You create both large scale and smaller works. Do you prefer the intricacy of more detailed pieces or the grandeur at a massive scale with your large installations? Which feels most satisfying to you?

N.E.: Monumental has not always to do with scale. A very small piece can feel very monumental. But making something tiny asks a lot of concentration. Sometimes I love to just work heavy and physical on a big piece.
I love the diversity in my life and work. Switching from scale, material, a subject can make you have new challenges in life that trigger you.

Read the Full Article on Art Market Magazine Issue #50