Tablemaker and furniture artist Koen Van Eeckhoutte made his first table in 2017 and since then never stopped creating. Van Eeckhoutte sees tables as the connecting element in each household where people share food, stories, love and life. He didn’t keep his repertoire by tables alone. Inspired by objects he receives or finds on the street near trash-bins he also makes works with a different conceptuality and appeal.
Get in touchVan Eeckhoutte has been fascinated by swords and knives, bows and arrows ever since he was small. The attraction for him comes from the combination of a slick appearance with a dangerous purpose. A necessity brought up in a time when a clawless and fangless people needed to protect themselves against animals that saw them as prey. Afterwards unnecessary in that way, but still integrated in modern daily life in a away that is indispensable. With the use of weaponry, Van Eeckhoutte point to the in his eyes absurd glorification and normalization of violence in movies, games and modern media.
VE Gallery
In his gallery Van Eeckhoutte wants to showcase his work. It is also his wish to create a space (first in Amersfoort and currently in Rotterdam) for fellow artists to show their work too, and for them to organize events where creativity plays a central role.
As a child Van Eeckhoutte often drew skeletons, knights, dragons and other mythical creatures. Drawings on the battles between good and evil. This theme is still clearly visible in his current works. The work of Van Eeckhoutte is varied and is directed by his own ideas and fantasies that come up spontaneously. By finding things thrown away on the street, reading a book or reflecting with table guests. The swift elegance of the sword, captured in a table. The expression of destruction in a transitory way on a material. Figurative fantasies full of battling knights and dragons recorded in a comic strip, drawing or painting. The absurdity of life portrayed as a skeleton on a chair. The attraction of soft birds in simple black and white.