Collections

Manuela Klerkx

"Spring is in the Air" and now on your wall

Winter was long and dark. There seemed to be no end to it, as did the virus that has gripped us for over a year now. But now that spring is really in the air, crocuses are sprouting and daffodils are turning the flowerbeds yellow, I feel hope for better times again. We have been walking the paths and avenues for months, but how wonderful the prospect is to sit on a terrace again and walk spontaneously and "unarmed" into a gallery or museum. For me, art has never been more comforting than it has been in the past year. But the spring season, symbol of new life, in which the days lengthen and the earth warms up by the sun, offers comfort.

For this collection I am looking for works of art that in one way or another evoke that spring feeling, that longing for what is to come. Because let's face it, like the seasons alternate, you sometimes want to change the art that hangs on the wall. And which season is better suited for this than spring? Think of it as a spring cleaning, wanting to get off to a fresh start. Also with new art on the wall and, why not, a new coat of paint on the wall. Because what could be better than that spring feeling in your own home. Especially now, because for the time being that terrace will be your own balcony and that lunch will take place in a sunny restaurant at home. But that is also enjoyment. With a delicious homemade cocktail - or mocktail of course - you can relax at home and especially with that fresh spring air outside and inside.

Wido Blokland

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The Antwerp-based Coppejans Gallery, the new kid on the block, is currently showing work by Wido Blokland. This artist and philosopher, who spends his days in Brittany, has elevated the uncovering of invisible and elusive structures that determine what and how we perceive to art. In his view, reality is much more comprehensive than we can perceive and explain on the basis of science. That's why he connects science, philosophy, mythology, spirituality and imagination to "open up the breathless space of infinite consciousness." You experience that "breathless" space in the spring, in a period of growth and flowering that applies not only to the outer but also to the inner world. In the photo "A Clearer Conception of Vision" we see a young man holding an over-sized Styrofoam egg in front of his eyes. The infinite blue sky behind him, the space in front of him blocked by an egg: beginning of new life, an opening, a beginning. We still have to be patient, but soon the egg will burst open and a world will open up for him. The man will no longer be "blinded" but he will see and experience… with his own eyes.

(COPPEJANS GALLERY)

Kanako Sasaki

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In Kanako Sasaki's photographs the world appears to be a paradise with room for memories and longing. Nature is peaceful and pure. Sasaki was influenced by Japanese novels and Ukiyo-e 'Prints of a Flowing World', a form of woodcut originating in Japan that became popular in Europe in the mid-18th century and had a profound influence on the European art world of the fin de siècle. Actually, I could have chosen all of her photos because of that "Wanderlust" that speaks out and that I also associate with spring. That strong desire to travel, to discover new things. You could also call it the spring fever, but that sounds a lot less poetic and I do not associate those "creeps" with Sasaki's still photographs. I chose the photo "As a Bird" because of the "nest", symbol of birth, the place that offers protection and shelter to humans and animals and from where they venture out to discover the world.

(Contour Gallery)

Larissa Lockshin

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Larissa Lockshin's paintings are often colourful bursts of materials such as oil paint, acrylic paint, ink, charcoal and glaze. Materials with which she shapes the world around her. During my - since Covid almost daily - walks at the end of the afternoon I have been accompanied by the sun for a few days. It strikes me how short that lasts; how quickly the sun disappears behind the trees or rather seems to sink into the ground. If you really want to enjoy it, you better take a seat and follow her carefully with your eyes. Only then do you realize how quickly the temperature drops and how dark and fresh it becomes once that copper platter has disappeared from the horizon. In this painting, Lockshin captures that typical light of that - now gone - evening sun beautifully in a painting that is almost abstract. What you experience is the dark green of the water and the red coloured sand. The beach is empty. The people have already gone home. And you are still there, alone, enjoying those first sunsets of spring.

(Baronian Xippas)

Dan McCarthy

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Who isn’t excited about spring? Maybe a lost misanthropist or a hay fever patient who hates those pollen. But on the whole, people in general and artists in particular are very happy with spring. The glazed ceramic vase "Solar Joyeux" by Dan McCarthy is a good example of this. Born in Honolulu and raised in Southern California, this artist trained as a painter has lived in New York for over thirty years. His low-tech ceramic works look rather dishevelled and clumsy at first glance. This desired result stems from McCarthy's method, based on an intuitive way of dabbling in chunks of clay with the open-mindedness of a child. For example, he creates smiley-faced characters and rainbows that hover somewhere between reality and fiction: they do not exist, but you still recognize them as old acquaintances. His "facepots" are as happy as they are empty, as perfect as imperfect: not the perfection of the final product but the process of growth itself and the accompanying undefined status fascinate this artist. And that can be compared to a nest that is still under "construction", an embryonic bird falling from the tree, a fresh rainbow, an unhappy smile, or a surprised expression. Just like in spring it is all there, but you do not know exactly which way it will go. The promise of what is yet to come, of the intermediate stage, seems more important than celebrating the end result.
That's why McCarthy's paintings and ceramics are "darker" than meets the eye. After all, the rainbow can become a thundercloud and one tear can become two. But still, the attraction is in the expectation of what beautiful things are still to come ...

(rodolphe janssen)

Les Monseigneurs

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The Ghent-based artist Thomas Renwart (1995) studied textile design at the LUCA in Ghent where he graduated in July 2019. Initially, as one half of the duo 'Les Monseigneurs' - together with graphic designer Victor Verhelst - but these days Renwart operates on his own. He has carpets woven in traditional Belgian and Dutch weaving mills - using local jacquard looms - which he designs himself and which evoke an emotion that holds the middle between melancholy and romanticism: botanical gardens, psychedelic fantasy creatures, poetic and/or humorous sayings, flowers and bulbs, grains and suns hang on the wall like paintings and breathe the atmosphere of a bygone era. Les Monseigneurs are often inspired by paintings by the Old Masters such as Van Eyck, but these 'vertical gardens' are an ode to Flemish tapestry and Gobelin weaving from the late Middle Ages: they are intimate, magical and personal, infused with humor, subtlety and a strong splash of psychedelics.
Residual yarn made from different types of fibres - such as cotton, flax, wool or viscose - is processed in the carpets. In this way these unused materials are given a meaningful destination. As Les Monseigneurs put it: 'In a playful way we try to bring a piece of the beauty of nature indoors.' And that is exactly what spring does: it shows us the beauty of nature.

(BruthausGallery)