Beauty in the Mundane (Ugliness)
The everyday, often overlooked in our hectic society, forms the backbone of Declerk's work. He focuses his lens on abandoned places, weathered walls and objects that have lost their original function. In these scenes of neglect and decay, he finds an unexpected richness of texture, color and light. A peeling layer of paint can reveal a complex pattern, and the shadows on a rusty metal surface tell a story of time and change. These details, unnoticed in everyday life, are elevated to art by Declerck. He challenges the viewer to look beyond the first impression of ugliness and discover the poetry hidden in the process of decay.
It is in the transformation from ‘ugly’ to ‘clean’ that Declerk's work shows its greatest strength. Through his careful composition and use of light, he creates images that exude a serene melancholy. Decay is not presented as something tragic, but as a natural and even beautiful process. The patina on an old door, the cracks in a sidewalk, or the weeds working their way through concrete become symbols of resilience and the inevitable passage of time. These images force us to reflect on our own perception of beauty and the cultural norms that define it.
Jurgen Declerck's photographic approach is a philosophical act. He uses the camera not just to record, but to interpret and create a new reality. The images he captures are not simply photographs of ugly things; they are the visual arguments of his thesis that beauty cannot be found only in perfection, but rather in imperfection, impermanence and transformation. Declerck's work offers powerful evidence that the mundane and decay, when viewed with an open mind, can be the source of a profound and authentic aesthetic.