Bernard Van Eeghem and Stefanie Claes have made a fantastic decision: they are combining their sumptuous imaginations! Together, they create an enormous painting on transparent plastic, all in front of a live audience in a standard theatre setting. (Actually, our theatre is not standard at all: it is in fact made of gold.)

At first, there is nothing. We are looking right through the plastic. Suddenly, points become lines, geometry becomes stereometric, curves expand into flora, fauna and people. Something new is continually appearing in this steadily growing portrait of ‘everything that is in the world’.

Omertà, the Italian title of this performance, is the pledge of absolute secrecy within the criminal organizations in Italy. This pledge of silence applies not only to members of the mafia, but also to outsiders and potential witnesses to mafia crimes.

With loaded paintbrushes at the ready, two painter-performers capture their audience in the silence of this artistic action. Omertà is practically a political statement in an age when easy social media, unmeasured haste and sweet technology take over from inner depth.