Willy De Bever was a painter, born and raised in Ieper. As a young man, Willy traveled the world with the Belgian army where he rose to the rank of officer. While he developed discipline in the military, he sharpened his skills as a draftsman with india ink drawings and posters. Willy never forgot his time spent with childhood neighbor and mentor, Justin Thoma, an amateur artist. The seeds of creativity were planted early for the young Ieper artist who would continue to expand his working pallette through out his early career.
In 1967, Willy De Bever discovered the lush, viscosity of oil paint. A medium most painters fall in love with simply because it’s a joy to push around the canvas. He worked almost ten-years in the medium, creating similar, dark compositions aesthetically comparable to his early ink drawings. However, after a bout with serious illness in 1975, Willy needed to break out of the monochromatic world he’d created. The paintings made during his battle with the illness would drastically change the artists pallette for the rest of his career.
Willy’s later paintings are a colorful joyride through the iconic landscape of a raucous, good time. The artist paints figures primarily, in all different states of celebration. Party’s are supposed to be fun, but everyone’s familiar with what happens when it seems like it will never stop. Some of us lapse into a state of unconscious blathering action, while others remain sober and condemned by the event, and of course there’s those who leave early. Willy’s paintings are the vomit and confetti of the party all wrapped in one cohesive body of work.
Willy’s revelers are shown sunning on the beach, dancing in nightclubs, playing music, buying flowers at the fair, and generally enjoying all sorts of festivals, coronations, and parades. His figures may be slung over one another in triumphant comradery, holding drinks, lounging provocatively, naked, wearing royal crowns and tiaras or some combination of all the above. The art studio can be a lonely place, but Willy seamed to have a solution for that. In his studio, the visitor feels like just another face in the crowd.
Every artist knows the art studio is a sacred space. It’s the place where we interface with the unknown. Every artist can confirm: when we’re in the zone, working creatively, the unknown stares back. The unknown is a collaborator: the muse. The artist finds the self in the studio and the overwhelming experience that shines through in that moment of discovery, is that we’re not alone. Willy created a network of friendships within his body of work. He spent the last day of his life in the art studio, hopefully in the warmth of that presence.