Soloshow: 'Echoes in Fabric, Marble and Metal' Nick Ervinck - Gallery Ysebaert
The exhibition runs from April 16 to June 7.
From a digital line to echoes in the physical world
For Nick Ervinck, everything begins with a simple line in his digital universe. He sets that line in motion and follows its development. It grows, twists, branches, and deforms. Step by step, a new structure unfolds. On the screen, a play of lines emerges that expands organically, almost like a form following its own logic.
In this phase, the work exists exclusively as a digital code: weightless, scalable, and detached from material. For Ervinck, precisely that moment is essential. Not only the digital origin itself, but above all the moment when a virtual form takes the step into the physical world and must relate to matter, weight, and scale.
As the title Echoes in Fabric, Marble and Metal indicates, the same digital origin returns in different materials. Not as an exact copy, but as an echo that sounds and feels different each time. In marble, the form acquires weight and density. In metal, it reacts to light and the environment. In textile, it becomes softer and tactile. Each material forces the form into a new posture and adds its own layer of meaning.
Every translation starts from the same digital movement but results in a different physical presence. What emerges digitally resonates differently each time in fabric, marble, and metal.
This way of working marks a new chapter within Ervinck’s practice. While he is internationally known for his distinctive, brightly colored 3D prints and polyester sculptures, here he consciously chooses a dialogue with artisanal and traditional materials. The digital remains the starting point but gains depth through the confrontation with material, craftsmanship, and time.
The encounter between technology and craftsmanship
What characterizes Nick Ervinck’s work is how naturally he brings together two worlds that are often seen as opposites. The digital and the artisanal, the immaterial and the tangible, future and past flow into one another in his practice. The form originates in a virtual space but is subsequently carved, shaped, or woven in materials that carry a long material history.
That transition becomes visible in his sculptures, drawings, and tapestries, which together feel like a concentrated explosion of energy and movement. Lines seem to flow, forms seem to stretch or contract, as if they could grow further at any moment. Just as the digital line develops organically, these forms, too, acquire a fluid, almost liquid presence.
In Ervincks universum zijn het open, afgeronde gestalten, zonder de scherpe randen die traditioneel met marmeren sculptuur worden geassocieerd. Leegtes en openingen spelen een even belangrijke rol als de massa zelf. Ze laten licht circuleren, versterken het gevoel van beweging en bepalen hoe het werk zich tot de ruimte verhoudt.
In Ervinck’s universe, they are open, rounded figures, without the sharp edges traditionally associated with marble sculpture. Voids and openings play a role just as important as the mass itself. They allow light to circulate, reinforce the sense of movement, and determine how the work relates to the space.
Nick Ervinck worked on the preparation of this solo exhibition for two years. The result is a coherent series in which his digital universe translates into a rich palette of materials, and in which form is not fixed but is renegotiated time and again between code and matter.