For his first solo show in the UK, the Belgian artist Harold Ancart has landed a whale. I meet the 38-year-old painter at David Zwirner’s London space, where he is inaugurating his first show at the behemoth gallery. “It is a great honor,” he tells me breathlessly, as if he can’t quite believe where he’s standing. “David Zwirner’s program is probably one of the best in the world.”
Ancart has had a winding path to art-world success. Several times, he almost gave up on his work entirely due to poverty and lack of recognition. But now, as his star is rapidly rising, he says it was all worth it, even just for the look of pride on his mother’s face at his first big opening in London. (A stalwart supporter, she comes to all of his shows, and is currently beaming from the sidelines at the tony Grafton Street gallery.)
The show, aptly titled “Freeze,” is full of colorful abstract paintings of icebergs that conjure thoughts of rapidly melting glaciers. (Asked whether climate change concerns him, he answers rhetorically, “Doesn’t climate change concern every one of us?”) Each painting includes a bleak horizon line that Ancart says serves to make the work feel rooted in the history of Western art and to project the viewer into the future. “Without a horizon line, one gets lost and eventually dies,” he says.
A Brussels Sprout Born in Belgium in 1980, Ancart started drawing in elementary school. “I remember that a tall redhead guy with glasses named Mr. Antoine gave me gouache to paint with,” he recalls of his artistic debut. “Since then I never really stopped.”
Drawing was a reliable pastime for Ancart, who recognized it as “a great way to escape the boredom of being at school without getting into trouble.” He also voraciously read comic books and manga growing up in Brussels, a city where comics are close to the hearts of many. As a young boy, he was inspired by the Belgian creator of Tintin, Hergé, as well as the work of Peyo (the creator of the Smurfs). Ancart would doodle his comic book heroes on every scrap of paper he could find.
Later, he moved on to more highbrow comic creators, including Jean Van Hamme and Yves Swolfs, who he still reads today. “I like the fact that this medium has the ability to open unthinkable universes by means that are really simple,” Ancart explains. “An outline combined with some color and text is enough to make you travel far away.” As he grew, his artistic tastes expanded to accommodate other draftsmen, including the Belgian artists Léon Spilliaert and James Ensor, as well as Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, and Frank Auerbach.
Despite his intense interest, Ancart says he never really saw himself becoming a professional artist. “I guess I never liked the bohemian vibe that surrounded the persona of the artist,” he explains, free-associating the likes of “bread crumbs, stinky cheese, cheap red wine, poverty,” and, of course, that hallmark of artistic life: “struggle.” So after graduating from high school when he was 20 (he was held back twice for poor grades, math presenting a particular hurdle), Ancart went on to study political science at university, hoping to become a diplomat.