Biography and quotes
Biography
Willy Peeters lives and works in Louvain (Heverlee).
He was born in Turnhout in 1957 and grew up in Gierle.
From 1972 he took art classes at the St-Lucas-Institute in Brussels.
He continued higher education at the same school, from which he graduated in art with a specialization in sculpture.
Since 1983 he has worked as a self-employed artist. His work is frequently on display in individual exhibitions. He has often participated in collective exhibitions.
Willy Peeters has realised a number of large works for public places and buildings.
His creations can be found all over the world as “Awards” ordered by a variety of organisations.
As a portraitist he has realised several busts.
“My works create the illusion of movement. This movement is compressed; it is covered with a skin of bronze and exudes a degree of sensuality. The main emphasis is on the selection of the moment in the movement and especially on the styling design and lively treatment of the surface. This lively treatment that I like to describe as my signature is also present in my recent, more intimate works
My ideas and concepts come from present day experience, but also refer to ancient roots. Revisiting the major issues in the European tradition, in connection with life, death, religion and thought, occurs to me spontaneously.
My sculpture may bring out emotion. The symbolic tension often gives it an extra dimension.”
Quotes
Joost De Geest
…Willy Peeters’ sculpture is not self referential, neither does it refer to the baffling cocktail of 'isms', but to societies underlying values; as if to stress this fact he embraces virtuous and monolithic titles like 'Hope'. Despite -or rather because of - their figurative nature, Peeters sculpts with a high degree of abstraction and suggestion. Even though he develops groups in the nineteenth century tradition, he stops short at adopting hyper-realism. When faced with expectations that he be more photographic in his technique, he resists pressure to standardise his forms. To enhance this non-standardised process, he employs material contrast mainly between bronze and stone. By using rough stone plinths, he transcends the functional and decorative as the stone serves not as a base alone, but plays a dynamic role in the total piece. The stone forms a broad canvass for the moving bronze and often seems to dwarf the figures creating spatial as well as material contrast. In other words he plays with scale to great effect...
Mark Eyskens
The social commitment of Willy Peeters first of all reveals itself through the accessibility of his works, which at the same time is one of the keys to his success. The subjects of his sculptures moreover demonstrate he has an eye for human decisiveness, performance, unremitting labour, solitary diligence, common dedication. As visual artist Peeters has something to offer in the field of aesthetics that seems to fulfil the needs and desires of our society, a society often tormented by insecurity, which reacts anxiously to unexpected changes and sometimes lapses into a state of being adrift, let alone desperation. The sculptor Willy Peeters conveys in bronze what will possibly become the most important assignment of our 21st century: turning the changes that are massively heading towards us and are threatening to overrun us, into actual human progress. This however requires a prototype we may refer to and boast upon, which is exactly what Willy Peeters has to offer.