Six questions for
Tom Herck

How do you describe your own art practice?

For me, the most important thing is the realisation and creation of my concept.
The medium is not my biggest interest, only in my decay works the medium is crucial for the creation and the philosophy of the work.

Although my roots are painting on murals, I became bored of this. It has too many limits, I was always fascinated by big megalomanic projects that conquer their space. Objects that look at you, not the other way around. So my medium depend on the thing that I want to create for the particular concept. My last one was a 5 meter high statue in polyester, the one before a 60.000 kg statue in concrete and my next one is going to be in bronze. Still, I can enjoy myself by painting with acrylics from time to time at home, but the older I get the more I fall in love with the building of installations and in situ work. In the end, I’m an allrounder.

What was your first experience with art?

My father is an artist so in a way the presence of art was always there. I have a lot of childhood pictures at a very young age where I was drawing and sculpting with him. So it’s hard for me to remember my very first experience with art.

My parents also put me in artschool when I was six, I remember I was bored very quickly and stopped after 3 lessons.

On the other hand, I remember when I was 11 years old I was part of a team with other kids to create a sculpture of 3 meters high in polyester. This statue is still there. My part was to make a work in clay and later they put all the works of the kids together and made an abstract work out of it.
I always like to work alone. Even when I was young so the experience was 50/50.

What is your greatest source of inspiration?

I love music when I create, I’m extremely sensitive to music and it influences the tempo of my work a lot. Nature, history and geographical movies and books inspire me a lot as well.

I’m not really busy what is going on in the art world around me. Being alone in the car at night, or taking a 4 hour bath can be pretty inspiring. Conversations with people as well.

What do you need in order to create your work?

Mental and physical health, finished paper work, finished business meetings. I don’t like too much mess around me when I create something because my brain is already a chaotic place.

Still, because I have no “real” medium it depends on the situation. For bigger projects you need to get money, sponsors, do the business side, what I actually love to do. It’s also a way of creation.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m making a small book about my latest project “Holy Cow”, I’m busy researching astronomical, historical and geographical things for a project what is going on this summer in England and Peru together with Niels Vaes.

Also I’m busy with another big project which considers a sailing boat where we going to do a performance in Belgium and London. In the mean time I’m still painting some canvases of my series “Framed Cities” and “Decay Works”.

What work or artist has most recently suprised you?

Last week I was in the studio of Geert Van Hoovels. I like his work, we have a common sense of macabre humor, only he uses assemblage to create it. After the visit we decided to do a duo exhibition this year.