09 august 2022, Flor Linckens
The summer exhibition at NQ Gallery
It is an annual tradition in the gallery world: the summer exhibition. Traditionally, it shows work by the artists who are affiliated with the gallery. From 18 August, after a short summer break, a summer exhibition will be on show in NQ Gallery in Antwerp, with work by no fewer than eleven artists. These are artists who will exhibit in the gallery in the coming year, but the gallery has also invited a number of guest artists.
For example, the gallery shows several pieces by Stacii Samidin and Alexander Tinei, who are both affiliated with NQ Gallery.
Stacii Samidin, Societies Albania, 2022, NQ Gallery.
Stacii Samidin, filmmaker and documentary photographer, is known for his "Societies" series, a raw and honest series in which he captures the lives of people from all over the world, from Nairobi and Paramaribo to Berlin. He photographs these people with respect, without judging or condemning them. By portraying their sometimes unorthodox lives, he hopes to bring about a change in our collective consciousness.
The painter Alexander Tinei is intrigued by a certain societal shift, specifically the visibility of private moments that used to be private before the rise of the internet. He often bases his paintings on images found in the media. By painting them, he strips these human bodies of their original context and gives them a dreamy appearance.
Alexander Tinei, Roof, NQ Gallery.
In addition, the exhibition also offers a stage for artists who are not officially affiliated with the gallery, including Aline Thomassen and Aurélie Geurts.
Earlier this year, Aline Thomassen's atmospheric work was on display in the 'Raw' exhibition in the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. She makes penetrating and uncomfortable watercolours of naked women, through which she researches the female body as a psychological landscape, shaped by the expectations of our society, history, media and art history.
Aline Thomassen, No Title, 2020, NQ Gallery.
One of the most penetrating photos in the exhibition is a work by Aurélie Geurts, who searches for a human connection in her work, based on a deep and sincere curiosity about her fellow man. She met Carole, the woman in the photo, in Antwerp. She told about her terminally ill father, for whom she had temporarily paused her life. When she discovered that Geurts was a photographer, she asked if she wanted to capture Jozef. Carole described her 96-year-old father as an intelligent man who survived the Holocaust after being imprisoned as a political prisoner in Buchenwald.
In addition to these artists, the exhibition also shows work by Erwin Keustermans, Levi Malfait, Bas Meeuws, Marc Mulders, Anne Silverstrand Forest, Sara van Vliet and Francis Vanhee.
Aurélie Geurts, Carole & Jozef, Antwerp, 2022, NQ Gallery.
