Kristof De Clercq gallery is happy to present a solo presentation dedicated to the work of gallery artist Léonard Pongo and a group presentation with works by gallery artists Agnes Maes, Vicken Parsons and Nahum Tevet at Art Brussels 2023.
SOLO | Léonard Pongo (b. 1988, Belgium)
Léonard Pongo is a photographer and visual artist. He started as a documentary photographer who gradually included snapshots and abstraction into his approach. His long-term project ‘The Uncanny’, shot in Congo DR, has earned him several international awards and world-wide recognition. Pongo’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA and published in WSJ, The Guardian UK, The Washington Post, National Geographic and several other international publications. He was chosen as one of PDN’s '30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch' in 2016 and recipient of the Getty Reportage Grant in 2018.
‘Primordial Earth’, his latest project, was shown at the Lubumbashi Biennale, the Recontres de Bamako, BOZAR and Mu.ZEE. By exploring the diversity of landscapes in Congo DR, Pongo offers an allegorical imagery of the country. Imbued with a sense of magical beauty and mystical power, the landscape seen through his eyes becomes a setting to rebuild the self, and the earth becomes the source of an awareness from which tradition, philosophy and conceptions of the universe emerge. Drawing inspiration from Congolese traditions and Kasaian cultures, ‘Primordial Earth’ presents the landscape as a character with its own will and power, like an open book that tells the story of humanity and the planet, with Congo at its centre.
Pongo is based between Brussels and Kinshasa and shares his photographic career between his long-term projects in Congo DR, teaching and assignment work. Pongo is also a member of The Photographic Collective‘s advisory board. His work is part of institutional and private collections
GROUP | Agnes Maes, Vicken Parsons and Nahum Tevet
Agnes Maes (1942-2016, Belgium)
The work of Belgian artist Agnes Maes is characterised by a great variation in form and subject matter, both in painting and drawing. Her work balances between figuration and abstraction, and is deeply rooted in what one could call the 'Flemish tradition of painting'. Both in themes, colour scheme, brushstrokes and layers, one can find references to and echoes of Raoul De Keyser and Roger Raveel. The very personal use of colour, the sensitive, intuitive brushstroke, and the lush, palpable light make Agnes Maes' paintings extremely sensual.
Vicken Parsons (b. 1957, UK)
Vicken Parsons is a British artist who studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. Her paintings characteristically depict architectural interiors and landscapes plunged in a warm and delicate atmosphere. The paintings are executed in thin, almost translucent layers of oil paint on small but thick wooden panels. The imprecise geometric fields evoke landscapes or partial views of interiors. These spaces come from both the artist’s memory and imagination, and possess an intimate quality that stands in contrasts to the monumental art of Parsons’s studio mate and husband, Antony Gormley. Parsons renders the paintings in a muted palette with occasional flashes of yellow, blue, orange or white.
Nahum Tevet (b. 1946, Israel)
Nahum Tevet’s poetic sculptural language is based upon the connections between painting, sculpture and architecture. His sculptures challenge the legacy of minimalism and conceptual art in daring and exciting ways. The ‘building blocks’ that comprise Tevet’s formal vocabulary, for both his small wall works and the large, sprawling sculptural installations are never ‘ready mades’. They are simple, almost archetypal forms: the chair, the table, the box, the boat, the book, etc. As viewers, confronted with a nested configuration of these ‘building blocks’ in different colours and measures, some right-side up, others resting on their side, some upside-down, we are required to constantly recalibrate and puzzle out an elusive ‘correct’ point of view. Tevet has been the subject of major survey exhibitions at both the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Museum. His work has been part of exhibitions worldwide since 1975, such as numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the United States.