November 2, 2002: I take the train to Ghent's St-Pieters Station, where I am picked up by Piepke who takes me to his studio located just outside the city center. I have corresponded with Piepke over e-mail during the last weeks and I am looking forward to meeting him. He appears to be skinny, shy and very friendly, his sparkling eyes interjecting humor combined with sadness. Piepke shows me his paintings depicting gay sex between cyber-figures set on psychedlic backgrounds. We talk about these works and his later darker paintings depicting violence and sacrifice, as openly as possible. Besides talking about ghost-figures and butterflies in his art, the Porn Ar(t)ound the World festival and Belgian sex politics. Piepke also indicates an interest in discussing his interest in computer animation.

QUESTION: You early paintings are mostly 'bubbly' creatures who are groping and fucking happily, but your later work on sex is so much more dark. Could you say something about your painting "We Don't Need Another Fascist Groove Thing"? This is the painting in which one nazi official is licking another one's buttocks (his face is modeled on pinnocchio) in front of a sign with a big cross.

ANSWER: Yes in this painting I managed to make a connection that I had not been able to make in a long time. This painting and the entire Allez-Lujah series makes references to catholicism, which I believe is an almost fascist institution. We have the right to select or discover our own reliegon. I get very shocked when I notice that one particular idea or religeon is imposed onto others. And the catholic church is a very good example of that tendency, and it is very close to me. I chose 'pinnochio' as a symbol of the fixated idea of religeon, because Disney character are perceived the the norm of animated characters. There is so much more than that, but you have to search for it, dig for it. This is very difficult in our consumerist society, where commerce is more important than anything, and quality is less important. People have stopped believeing in their own talent and seek it in others. You see it even in gay relationships here in Belgium. They are supposed to be examples of creative and open-minded life-styles, yet they also carry the traces from past ideologies. For instance, the gay community is very vocal about asking for equal rights, but they can be very discriminatory against the heterosexual community. I think that that is a replication of the catholic homophobic society that they are criticizing.

QUESTION: So you don't feel integrated in the gay movement in Belgium as an artist?

ANSWER: I don't feel rejected nor integrated, although I have never had problems with my own gay sexuality. I don't feel a real need to be part of the community.

QUESTION: Could you explain the painting f* Fragile, which shows a hanged animal with a crown made of thorns and the slogan 'fuck fragile' on his stomach.

ANSWER: It depicts a hanged christ-like figure (Bambi) who is also lacking a leg, a work from the same period were I was confronted with the handicap of desires, or my own desire. This is my painting that gets the most extreme reactions from audiences. Some people actually spat on it and defiled with other materials during the Dimensio exhibition in Barcelona (2001). I was one of the co-curators of this exhibit and had to arrange for an exchange between young Belgian and Spanish painters. The intention was to solicit painters who work outside the commercial circuit and to awaken the interest from the commercial dealers. So I went to Barcelona for two months and was able to see what goes on there in painting, which to me was disappointing as compared to the Belgian scene in photography in painting, which is much more experimental and daring.