PARALLEL SURFACES

Sybren Vanoverberghe (b. 1996, Belgium) develops an artistic practice in which photography is never merely an image, but a material, spatial, and temporal proposition. Working across photography, installation, and sculptural display, he approaches landscape as a mutable construct—shaped by geological processes, political histories, and cultural memory. His works suggest that places are never fixed entities, but shifting fields in which past, present, and projection overlap.

"Working in the studio, starting from my archive and through a physical, material process, enables me to slow these images down and deepen them. The photographic image does not constitute an endpoint, but rather a point of departure for an investigation into the many ways an image can be presented, approached, manipulated, and embodied within our contemporary image culture—through the image itself, as well as through the printing process and the material support on which it appears. At times, it feels as though the act of exposure and the processes that follow allow images to be preserved within an ever-expanding archive, requiring time to resurface, mature, and ultimately materialise as physical works." — SV

Most of the images in Parallel Surfaces originate in Egypt and neighboring regions, where ancient architectural traces and arid rocky terrains coexist in stratified constellations. The images hover between landscape, surface, and abstraction, appearing precise yet open-ended. By foregrounding color as a condition rather than a subject, Vanoverberghe exposes photography’s reliance on systems of control—exposure, balance, reference—while revealing their fragility. What seems objective becomes contingent; the image functions as a spatial encounter that unfolds over time.

Rather than documenting neutrally, Vanoverberghe constructs images that oscillate between evidence and speculation. Industrial terrains, peripheral zones, desert environments, and fragments of built heritage recur not as motifs of ruin or nostalgia, but as thresholds where human intervention and natural processes collide. Time appears layered: the photograph becomes a surface on which multiple temporalities coexist.

"The new series presented at DIE PLEK depicts rock formations in Egypt and Jordan, sites where heritage and environment intermingle. I am drawn to the patina visible in these landscapes and cities—the non-museum-like, lived engagement with history—which contrasts sharply with Western approaches to heritage. This patina also informs the colors of the new works, reflecting a history that continues to unfold within daily life rather than being frozen." — SV

This understanding of photography as both record and object has led Vanoverberghe to examine the material and technical conditions of the medium itself. In Grey Card Gray, this extends to materials and color calibration. Framing is integral to his practice, with all frames conceived and executed by the artist. In this exhibition, recycled passe-partouts echo the photographic grey card—a tool used to establish chromatic neutrality—acting as windows onto the world. By producing and finishing the prints himself, Vanoverberghe treats color balance not as a corrective endpoint but as a variable condition. Calibration becomes a site of friction, foregrounding the photograph as a physical artefact and revealing color as a constructed and contingent outcome.

Vanoverberghe’s practice proposes a quiet but insistent shift in understanding contemporary photography. His works do not fix the world in place, but register its impermanence—showing that landscapes, images, and histories are continuously reassessed. In doing so, he invites the viewer to consider photography not only as a tool of capture, but as a site where perception, materiality, and time remain unresolved.strange.

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Koen Leemans
Director Keteleer Gallery