Guy Janssen Belgian, 1953

Guy Janssen (1953, Borgerhout) is a Belgian sculptor known for his ability to transform hard materials such as marble, bluestone and alabaster into organic, flowing forms. Although he has a technical background and studied modelling for two years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, he considers himself largely self-taught in sculpture.

Guy strives for stone in motion. His work is often abstract and inspired by nature, focusing on elegance, suppleness and “stone emotion”. Like Henry Moore, Janssen makes frequent use of “piercings” (holes or see-through openings) in the stone. Whereas Moore used this to connect mass and space, Janssen uses it to give the heavy material a sense of suppleness and lightness.

Janssen often works according to the principle of taille directe, whereby the final form emerges during the carving of the stone itself, without a rigid preconceived plan. This places him in a tradition of sculptors who let the “voice of the stone” speak, an approach that was also central to artists such as Isamu Noguchi.

Janssen has created more than 25 monumental sculptures that are displayed in public places both at home and abroad. A well-known example is the artwork “Polderpoort” in Stabroek. In addition, many of his monumental works are located in park-like gardens belonging to private collectors.