Wall composition in acrylics
With this mural, De Gobert wanted to show that urban growth pushes nature further and further away. He painted what we could have seen around the station before the urbanisation of the area: softly undulating landscapes and wide plains, represented in the spring, summer, autumn and winter. He created a wonderfully beautiful, perfectly pure nature, separated from the underground world with a mosaic strip in yellow, ochre and brown which symbolises the underground geological layers.The scene is very detailed, for example with an easily recognisable kingfisher, robin, or wren. We can also see clouds of all sorts of shapes and colours. Overall, the mural is dominated by green and blue tints, which gives a calm atmosphere to the station.
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PAUL DE GOBERT (Ixelles, 1949)
Paul de Gobert is part of the hyperrealist movement which is represented in illusionism, construction from a central perspective, trompe-l’oeil, and the meticulous rendering of elements. He has renewed ties with the figurative tradition and created a new link between painting and architecture with mural images that use architecture as a support for a story which they address to passers-by. For Paul De Gobert this was also a way of distancing himself from commercial and modernist architecture. His work displays a lot of imagination and a taste for playfulness and humour. De Gobert has not taken architectonic form into account. He sometimes presents a work of art which gives the illusion of three dimensions on a two dimensional façade.