Bob Lejeune

Netherlands, 1958
Sculpturen
Bob Lejeune seeks balance between figuration and abstraction. The word new-fangled is right up Bob Lejeune’s alley in more ways than one. Many times he decides to put a sculpture back in the kiln when he wants to give it an extra color by adding a layer of glaze. From then on, the fire does its work. The firing creates new forms and colors.
What happens in the kiln tends toward alchemy, the ancient wisdom of searching for the philosopher’s stone. But Lejeune is not an alchemist – at least not in the traditional sense as in earlier centuries, driven to rearrange the elements with the supreme goal of creating gold – but there is indeed a new becoming of earth, water, air and fire. In the ceramic kiln, earth, water, air and fire, in this case the main element, interact.
“What happens in the furnace tends toward alchemy, the ancient wisdom of searching for the philosopher’s stone.”



