Kunsthal Gent:
“Olivier Goethals (∞) studied Architecture & Urban Development. He is working simultaneously as an architect & artist. In his wide practice he researches the connection between space and consciousness.
Olivier made spatial interventions and artistic installations for venues such as: Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Ruhrtriennial Bochum, Biennial Lyon, Extra City Antwerp, BNKR Munich, Triennale Milano & Palais De Tokyo Paris.
His drawings and paintings have been shown in Palais De Tokyo Paris, Kunstverein Arnsberg, Kristof De Clerck Ghent, Fred & Ferry Antwerp, kunsthal Kade Amersfoort, 019 Ghent, Art Antwerp & Biennial Lyon.
Previously he worked as a freelance architect for De Vylder Vinck Taillieu (2008-2016). Since 2010, he has been teaching at the KULeuven Architecture Department. He was a guest critic at RU Ghent faculty of Architecture, ESALA University of Edingburgh, LUCA School of Arts, Architecture Academie Maastricht and others.
Olivier is actively part of the art collective 019-ghent.”
Isaline Raes, Kristof De Cleck Gallery:
"The working method of the Ghent-based artist Olivier Goethals is spontaneous, continuous, and intuition-driven. His paintings and works on paper develop through rich, overlapping layers — a complex interplay of lines, surfaces, and subtle movements that playfully guide the eye from one gesture to the next, each stratum revealing something new upon closer observation. This layered approach evokes memory, consciousness, and the shifting boundaries between inner and outer worlds.
His works often emerge as fleeting dreamscapes: abstract natural forms tangled with architectural lines. Acrylic, ink, pencil, spray paint, and oil stick collide in soft transitions and abrupt interruptions, forming a visual language that hovers between the organic and the constructed, the remembered and the imagined. Excerpts of text — philosophical reflections or politically charged fragments — punctuate these surfaces like anchors or small ruptures, recalibrating meaning, rhythm, and tone.
Goethals frequently references memory, consciousness, nature, and everyday life — always with an uncanny slant, as if filtered through a dream or a parallel realm. His works suggest immersive, otherworldly universes in which art becomes a passage to transcend reality." 202510
Olivier Goethals:
“All good things serve space. In architecture, the walls are at the service of the space in between those walls. In drawings, lines are related to one another by the surface between those lines. Similarly, the stillness between sounds is essential for the understanding of spoken language and the appreciation of music.
My practice revolves a lot around spatial interventions. They are built structures which relate directly to the existing environment. The object of interest hence becomes the redefined, charged space between the new and the given. I aim to maximize the potential of space by creating open environments for future use; new stages for prospective happenings.
Hereby, I focus on increasing the awareness of visitors, to enhance their presence as observers in the here and now. Sentiency, the sensory ability of organisms or agents to feel and to experience the environment, is a very specific spatial quality. The treatment of space is then of major significance to bring sentient beings closer to being, to consciousness itself. In this, the (art)world functions as the playful place of spatial experiment.
True creative action has in its core a spatial-temporal element. A creative action can be understood as an acausal expression of felt spatial empathy; because the act of creating itself is rooted in a space-like emptiness. True creative action is never an expression of one's personal thoughts; it flows from the impersonal depth through the space in between those thoughts. Like breathing, creative action happens.”
TIME IS SPEEDING UP
PLAY
ABOUT
INTRO PLAY SINCERELY: CHRISTOPHE VAN GERREWEY
Q&A WITH OLIVIER GOETHALS & BERNARDO KASTRUP. 20211205
ARCHITECTURE
(web)design: Mathieu Serruys