Jeroen Frateur

Unknown, and Not Necessarily Unloved

When I open the hood of a car, I am confronted with an admittedly bizarre and unfamiliar structure. A structure capable of magical powers: roughly 200 km/h; roughly a hundred years after horse and cart, which managed barely 5 km/h. That much I do know, from experiences and memories. But I know nothing about engines.

When I walk into the grain distillery of Filliers, it feels as though I step straight into the engine itself: I am absorbed into a structure of boilers, pipes, grids, domes, gauges, test tubes, metal staircases, sealed locks, … A world I do not know; a strange planet. But one capable of magical powers. That, too, I know from earlier experiences and memories. And again, admittedly: I know nothing about grain distilleries.

To muse on looking at things in wonder, things you do not understand, yet that intrigue you: you can give aspects of them a place, drawn from earlier experiences and memories.

My artworks refer to the unknown. What we do not know, we cannot place. We can look at it, however, and experience a possible magic, relate aspects of it to memories, and in that way still become participants like the astronaut who sets foot for the first time on an unknown planet: this is real, and it seems to resemble… another experience.

Jeroen Frateur
January 2026