Michel Smekens contemporary Artist

Michel Smekens is an artist-author who, after solid preparation, took off masterfully, fishing in himself for a poetry full of exciting feelings. An art form, modern, current, but not unconscious of the past then appears. Expressionism is, without a doubt, the sign of this artist-author by his brush stroke. It gives shape to personal feelings and moods which are the most broadly societal, in describing them as in evoking them. From his artworks, he irresistibly calls the public because his Art requires a dialogue with those who feel themselves involved as well as those who believe in looking at his art only superficially. They do not allow the distracted passerby to pursue a path without attention, they forcefully recall him, they irresistibly seek a dialogue, just as the Author seeks a continuous confrontation or comparison with a conscious public and an integral part of Humanity, as Michel feels. It is therefore not easy to pass in front of the artworks of Michel Smekens without stopping or weaving a silent dialogue with the lines and colors through the melody of the poetic force that underlies them; they call on us with force to live in us. Their memory, engraved in our soul, will help us face life and what it holds for us.

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Perhaps it is because the poetry that gave birth to them comes from the precursors of a pulsating soul that wants to communicate everything and share with all humanity, joys and sorrows.

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As we contemplate his artworks, we are relaxed, as if a pranotherapist were laying on us his warm hands. Looking at them, we feel wrapped in a warm human attention that brings back the very essence of life in us. On other occasions, I have defined them as "thaumaturgical", healing, soothing, as directly destined for the care of our soul, of our inner well-being.

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Florence, July 25, 2022

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Emanuela Catalano

Art critic

Professor emeritus of art history

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