17·04·24 | 11:00
Crystal Ship festival, Ostend’s open-air gallery.
Since 2016, Ostend hosts the Crystal Ship festival, a renowned urban art event curated by All About Things. This spring, we joined the festival, adding our fantasy and animal-inspired art to the city’s open-air gallery. Our highlight: a 3-meter-tall sculpture at Ostend’s train station, inspired by James Ensor. Stay tuned for the creation process!
Dulk and James Ensor: Influence on Our Sculpture
This year, CrystalShip opened its call for submissions, proposing the artist James Ensor as the central theme.
From Ensor’s color palettes, his skeletons and figures dressed as jesters, and his representations related to music, our sculpture is born. It combines the fantasy and animals of Dulk with the aesthetic universe of James Ensor, being a clear example of how Dulk’s style can blend with others that are completely opposite.
James Ensor was a Belgian painter recognized for his style that merged impressionism and expressionism. His works are characterized by representations often featuring masks, skeletons, and grotesque figures, reflecting his fascination with the macabre and grotesque. In his paintings, he also incorporated symbolic and surrealistic elements, along with a vibrant color palette.
The process
Everything begins with the creation of the sketch. Once the design is finalized, it passes to our colleague Dani for its 3D modeling. In Valencia, we are fortunate to have fallas artists with whom we often collaborate to bring our designs to life. This is how this 3D modeling becomes a reality in these artisan workshops, where it is modeled and covered with a layer of paper and glue in the traditional style. Subsequently, we bring it to the studio where, together with our team, we apply the paint and give it the final touches before sending it to Ostend.
“Masks, skeletons, and grotesque figures, reflecting his fascination
with the macabre and grotesque”
Antonio Segura “Dulk”
Unboxing at Ostend Train Station
Excitement, nervousness, and a slight touch of tension, honestly. The sculpture traveled almost 1700 km inside a truck, protected within a wooden cage reinforced with foam.
Although the transport protection was assured, it always generates a bit of unease when we open the cages to check the sculpture’s condition. However, we breathed a sigh of relief upon confirming that the journey had been perfect. There were no visible damages, and we were able to place our new character in the center of the train station quickly and without any problems. Here’s a glimpse of the unboxing moment.
Click on this image to find more about James Ensor x Dulk!
