25 april 2023, Flor Linckens
Perception and abstraction in the work of Carla Arocha & Stéphane Schraenen
Until 6 May, Ballroom Gallery in Brussels is presenting a solo exhibition by Carla Arocha & Stéphane Schraenen. Since 2006, the artist duo has been collaborating on a practice that is in large part characterised by sculptural installations and works on paper.
The practice of Carla Arocha & Stéphane Schraenen functions as an artistic research within abstract art, building on both European and Latin American art historical heritage, from modernism and minimal art to op art and kinetic art. The artists are concerned with notions of scale, light, perception, architecture, materiality, reflection, context, fragmentation, visual culture, the nature of images and the boundary between the visible and the invisible. At the same time, they are interested in the relationship that humans enter into with the space that they move in, which is reflected in their installations.
Carla Arocha & Stéphane Schraenen, Direction Angle, 2017, Ballroom Gallery
Arocha and Schraenen regularly use geometric and repetitive shapes and transparent or reflective materials such as mirrors, (plexi) glass or aluminum. The location-specific installations, in particular, often exude a cool abstraction that is combined with a certain sensory experience - which may be explained by the fact that Arocha completed a degree in biology prior to her artistic training.
The duo describes their partnership as “a collaborative practice and shared visual language based on light, form, color and reflection. [We make] works of art that provoke questions and interpretations. Inviting the viewer to observe, reflect, imagine and contemplate. A space and time wherein perception and insight can exist without any judgement or hierarchy.”
Carla Arocha & Stéphane Schraenen, Discrepancy (1) orange/red, 2011, Ballroom Gallery
Carla Arocha was born in Caracas and received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She previously obtained a degree in Biology. Stéphane Schraenen was born in Antwerp and studied Communication Management at the Higher Institute for Communication Management in Antwerp, followed by an education at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.
Arocha and Schraenen presented their work at institutions including the Fondazione Prada in Milan, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, BOZAR in Brussels, the Wallace Collection in London, M HKA in Antwerp, Kunsthalle Bern and during the Brussels Biennial and the Cuenca Biennale in Ecuador. Their work has been included in the collections of, among others, the MoMA, Art Institute of Chicago, the M HKA, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, F.R.A.C. Auvergne, and the Fundación Banco Mercantil in Caracas.
