Wouter Van de Voorde: OPGELICHT

5.7.25 – 27.7.25

Catalogue and essay by Martyn Jolly [PDF]

Wouter Van de Voorde is a Belgian living in Canberra, Australia’s capital city. He navigates the tensions of home, migration, and belonging.

Opgelicht is a table of contents for a practice still very much in flux. These images transform familiar places and experiences into something uncanny and fragile, hovering between personal memory and broader histories.

Opgelicht, Dutch for “lit-up” or “scammed,” speaks directly to the material nature of this exhibition. The hand-made processes and techniques reflect an embrace of imperfection and human error.

At the same time, Opgelicht refers quite literally to light, the illumination of scenes onto photographic film, or photographic paper being exposed in a wet darkroom. This dual meaning runs through the entire exhibition.

The exhibition brings together fragments from different bodies of work, forming a constellation of images that reflect the messy, layered ways Van de Voorde inhabits the world.

Datura, a toxic, hallucinogenic plant, and noxious weed, recurs in his work, embodying the balance between allure and danger, memory and loss.

Strange scenes from family holidays also recur, with his wife, children and other relatives drifting into view. Misty and dank beaches. Tropical forests lit up. Second World War bunkers. Sandhills on the edge of town. A decommissioned scarecrow. The haunted house and a hole dug into his suburban backyard, it’s rim on fire, the kind of thing Dante warned us about.

Installation photos by Brenton McGeachie.