For this Art Rotterdam 2023 edition and our third participation Eva Steynen.Deviation(s) presents a playful and colorful booth, art works bringing joy when the times are grim.
Sculpture by Alice Janne, cut-out drawings with a blink by Benoît Felix, colorful abstract paintings by Johannes Ulrich Kubiak and Wannes Lecompte.
ALICE JANNE
°1985, Belgium
lives and works in Brussels
Alice Janne's oeuvre is often qualified as 'scientific pop art' or 'archeology of the present'. Exploring the evolution of our consumer society through the traces it leaves behind; an art practice dealing with a realm of discarded objects. By methodically enlarging these minuscule found objects she says: “You are not small, you are great!”. Alice Janne shows us fragments of things we close our eyes for everyday. In the exhibition space these sculptures and paintings are spread again. As if what have drown away, is drown around again, only this time in an exposition space where we finally stop and see them.
Graduated in 2012 from ERG art school (Brussels, BE) Alice Janne holds a Master’s degree in Visual Arts. In 2012 she received the Audience Award at the “Concours Médiatine Art Libre”. In 2014 she was selected for the “Prix de la Jeune sculpture” of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels. Her work figures in the renowned art collection of Alain Servais. She exhibited solo and in group in Belgium and abroad a.o. Supermarket/Stockholm” Independent Art Fair (SE, 2013), Centrale/lab, Brussels (B, 2016), Urban Art Contest, Brussels (B, 2021), Le Delta, Namur (B, 2022), Centre Wallonie Bruxelles, Paris (FR, 2022). September 2023 Alice Janne presents her first solo exhibition at the gallery in Antwerp.
BENOÎT FELIX
°1969, lives and works in Lustin (B)
The cut-out drawings of Benoit Felix in crayon or ink literally free themselves from their surface and trace themselves into the dispositions of space. The strong material allows to put the drawings under tension, giving back to the drawing its value as an existence in reality.
What you see is (not always) what you see. Language is an important part of Benoit Felix his body of work, and the ability to play with its different layers of presentation, reference and meaning.
Felix' works create a spontaneous smile and make you think about what you think you see: drawings that are not drawings because they are objects, but objects that are not objects because they are drawings. He refers to as “my traces that I cut out and tighten up in the space, like traps, to see them as an artwork... Or as questions put to the spectator: am I an artwork, they ask (with a blink)...
Benoît Felix exhibits since 1992, was laureate of price Georges Collignon, MAMAC (Liège) in 2003. In 2005 he had his first solo show at Office d'Art Contemporain, Brussels. Many will follow in Belgium and abroad. Next to his cut-out drawings, (video-)performances became part of is body of work. His work was recently on view a.o. Kaaitheater, Brussels (B), Botanique, Brussels (B), Flux Gallery, Liège (B), Maison des Arts Schaerbeek (B), Paper Positions Basel, Positions Berlin, Warande Turnhout (B), Garage Neven, Ninove (B). His work is also on view at anniversary group show in our gallery in Antwerp.
JOHANNES ULRICH KUBIAK
°1961 Annaberg-Buchholz (D)
lives and works in Antwerp (B)
Over the past 30 years, Johannes Ulrich Kubiak has engaged in a process of experimentation with a variety of media in order to research depth, colour and structure.
His work challenges and intertwines traditional genres and techniques in painting, drawing and photography informed by shifts in contemporary digital media.
In his drive to explore different media and investigate what lies beneath the surface, Kubiak‘s work shifted from 1992 – 2002 from painting to photography. For ten years, he worked in the artistic collaborative of Kubiak & Rauch. Similar to his pursuits in painting, he explored transparency of layers and the use of different supports in the photographic process.
This visibility of process is still apparent in Kubiak‘s paintings. The basis is a research for structure and depth. Throughout composition they disrupt and new forms emerge out of structures of colour.
J.U.Kubiak has exhibited since 1992 in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany, U.S., Austria, France, Belgium and The Netherlands. His work was recently on view in Antwerp (B), Positions Berlin (D) and Art Rotterdam (NL). His work is held in several private collections in Belgium and Germany, institutional collections incl. Deutsche Bank, Bundesbank, Kunstsammlung Sachsen, Berlinische Galerie.
Upcoming May during the Antwerp Art Weekend Kubiak presents his second solo show at the gallery.
WANNES LECOMPTE
°1979 (B), lives and works in Brussels
The painting wants to be a painting! For almost twenty years this is Wannes Lecompte's credo, celebrating the act of painting itself. And how he does! His oil on canvas is more than composition of color, texture and rhythm. Lecompte convoking and provoking chance, in a voluntary slow process, waits in front of the empty canvas until the painting presents itself. His interlacing brushstrokes mingle, one color over the other, packed together and surrounded by the white emptiness of the canvas.
Without trying to present a figure, Lecompte his scriptural paintings reveal slowly their poetic composition. Arrangements of density enforced by the emptiness around, compositions as well of sonorities as it is of silences. They show an intensity of the instant, that one unique moment, simultaneously slowing down and revealing playfully the 'drums' of our times.
Wannes Lecompte holds a Master's degree in fine arts (2005, Sint-Lucas, Antwerpen) and studied painting in Sint Lucas, Ghent and Künsthochschule Weissensee (Berlin). His work is exhibited since 2003 in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany.
Some small works are on view until 4 March in the anniversary group show at our gallery in Antwerp.