Van Imschoot’s breakthrough came a few years ago when he won the Prize for Culture of the city of Gent, and exhibited a series of paintings of female martyrs in the Vereniging van het Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, in Gent. Since then the artist’s oeuvre has strongly evolved. The historically loaded themes, through which he most of all likes to concentrate on the sharp edges of society and the forgotten stories of times past. From the onset his work can be contextualised within the entire history of painting. In the one painting, one can find a strong reminiscence of the sublime exaltedness of Tintoretto, whereas another painting will reveal itself to be leaning closer to the obscurity and distortedness of Goya. One of the constant factors in the artist’s canvases and drawings is the "typically Flemish" sense of humour, read: cynicism and irony. In this he stands in the same line as the Flemish Primitives, painters such as Breughel, Bosch, and later even Joachim Beukelaer and the Seventeenth Century tradition of Vanitas paintings.
The viewer needs to approach the paintings in an almost literary manner, in which the word often literally becomes image, and, in reverse, the painting is able to convey a complete story.
When the viewer is faced with one of his works, the search that the artist has undertaken in order to arrive at this one image almost becomes palpable. Often the viewer can clearly discern the areas where the artist painted over motifs, text and figures, rarely to conceal or disguise, but often in order to accentuate other parts of the canvas. He renders visible the colours he mixed to achieve that specific atmosphere in the work. This gives the work a rough appearance of sorts that leads the viewer to assume that the work is unfinished. This is precisely the way Van Imschoot succeeds in strengthening the dichotomous nature of the work, and its mystery. The viewer senses that the artist is not simply interested in producing legible, figurative works, but that he is also seraching for the "right" image. This "image" increasingly figures in van Imschoot’s work, in a number of canvases. These canvases constitute a work in everchanging combinations without ever losing their autonomy as individual "paintings".
The viewer needs to approach the paintings in an almost literary manner, in which the word often literally becomes image, and, in reverse, the painting is able to convey a complete story.
When the viewer is faced with one of his works, the search that the artist has undertaken in order to arrive at this one image almost becomes palpable. Often the viewer can clearly discern the areas where the artist painted over motifs, text and figures, rarely to conceal or disguise, but often in order to accentuate other parts of the canvas. He renders visible the colours he mixed to achieve that specific atmosphere in the work. This gives the work a rough appearance of sorts that leads the viewer to assume that the work is unfinished. This is precisely the way Van Imschoot succeeds in strengthening the dichotomous nature of the work, and its mystery. The viewer senses that the artist is not simply interested in producing legible, figurative works, but that he is also seraching for the "right" image. This "image" increasingly figures in van Imschoot’s work, in a number of canvases. These canvases constitute a work in everchanging combinations without ever losing their autonomy as individual "paintings".