I formed a typology of Kuba design, ranging from the simple to the complex. The book that resulted from this study served as a catalog for four exhibitions in the United States (most notably one at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC) and four more in Europe. African art makes extensive use of contrast on its twodimenstional surfaces, but its sculptural objects generally are not very colorful. They make use of complex symmetries, which I fi nd particularly inspiring. My art owes little to Modernism, which employs a fi nite array of solutions. What I hope for mine is that it draws upon perpetual permutations of the elements from which it is composed. I sold my Shoowa embroideries to the Musée Dapper and began to focus my attention on the bark cloths made by the Mbuti women of the Ituri rainforest. Their art is not based in religion or politics, but enjoys the purity of being devoid of any ulterior signifi cance. Randomly distributed points are joined by lines to create constellations of forms. At the heart of this creative process, the visual language is constantly reinvented. This kind of drawing also exploits remarkable ambiguities of perception. From 1990 through 1992, I began my work on Tanzanian sculpture—and I acquired quite a few pieces. My study on these was published in 1995. By that time, my paintings were being recognized. A critic specializing in the analysis of energy in art described it as “fi gural fi eld” or “fi gural induction,” a kind of spatial tension that he considers to be my invention. In fact I did introduce this into the practice of Western painting, but that was because I had already seen it used in Pre-Columbian embroideries as well as those of the Banjara of India. 127 FIG. 3 (right): Georges Meurant’s studio. Photo: Vincent Everaerts, 2008. FIG. 4 (below): Seat of the European Council in Brussels: meeting room of the heads of state. Philippe Samyn & Partners architects and engineers—Lead and Design Partner/Studio Valle Progettazioni, architects/BuroHappold Ltd., engineers. Integrated art scheme by Georges Meurant. Photo: Thierry Henrard, 2016.
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