“My fascination with the Gothic is that it isn’t dark at all. For me, it shows something like European springtime.” – Wim Delvoye

A centrepiece of artist’s oeuvre, the Gothic Trucks series transforms the monumental silhouettes of dump trucks, earthmovers and other heavy vehicles into elaborate architectural sculptures. Executed with remarkable skill in laser-cut corten steel, these works reimagine the ornate tracery, pointed arches, rose windows, buttresses, and spires of Gothic design within the framework of industrial machinery. The effect is both unexpected and captivating: the weight of metal is tempered by an almost ethereal delicacy, creating a visual paradox that invites prolonged contemplation.

While deeply rooted in the language of historical architecture, the series speaks directly to the present. Symbols of contemporary industry, logistics, and global commerce are stripped of their utilitarian role and recast as objects of cultural value. In their new guise, these machines possess a dignity and grace rarely associated with the mechanics of labour. Light filtering through the openwork steel creates shifting patterns and shadows, animating their surfaces and evoking the interplay of structure and ornament that once defined the master builders of the past.

In his Trucks, Delvoye continues his long-standing exploration of incongruous unions — the meeting of the artisanal and the industrial, the refined and the functional, the historic and the modern. The works do not merely juxtapose these worlds; they merge them into a single, coherent whole where form and ornament are inseparable. By embedding the visual vocabulary of architectural heritage into the very structure of contemporary industrial forms, Delvoye invites viewers to question established hierarchies between art, design, and engineering.