I followed the work of Peter Waterschoot since when struck by the theme of gentrification in Europe, he wandered nostalgically for low-star hotels with the desire to grasp their essence. A formidable cross-section of an era at the end, the twentieth century. Those who have spent a significant portion of their existence in the "previous century" may feel some nostalgia. Things run over you while you observe them uncertainly. The impression for many is that this, nostalgia, has to do with time or that the transformations are happening rather quickly, affecting the same span of existence, and at times are unacceptable. It is hard to adapt.
We need to react to this feeling. Art is a possibility. Peter's work stems from this awareness. A sort of resistance, at least at the beginning, almost instinctive, with a short documentary aftertaste. But it is with the series "At The Skin of Time" (2012-2019), a fundamental work in his career, that the Belgian artist definitively marks his territory. He delimits his field of action and lays the foundations for the evolution of his language. Nostalgia therefore diminishes; melancholy remains a background soundtrack, an indispensable yeast for a discourse that no longer needs to be autobiographical because art itself is now the subject.
As I said, if time runs too fast, then it is necessary to get out of time. Art, through the creation of images, becomes the way to exercise this challenge. "I want to create a world that is satisfying first of all for me and then for others that wish to enter," he tells me. Escaping time and space goes through rigorous, obstinate, and severe aesthetic research. Peter wants to go to the core, carve his voice, reveal it to the public without compromise, without being confused with others. It's a dedication to details, a commitment to the process that is becoming more and more attentive and all-encompassing. It is no coincidence that the following work "Sunset Memory", 2019 - 2021, (recently exhibited at the Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi and soon in Hasselt, in Belgium, and at the Fototeca Siciliana, in Italy) follows a similar path to the previous one. Atmospheres that draw from the noir genre, barely whispered figurative, delicate shades of almost abstract color, and a dilated and suspended time. Again we return to the temporal matter, which translates into a sort of heterotopia, with all due respect to Foucault's neologism which now lends itself to something else. A free dimension to connect to the capacity of imagination and to develop meta narratives in a non-linear but reticular form. Photographs, therefore as indecisive moments.