MARLIES DE CLERCK | ERLEND GRYTBAKK WOLD | MAX KESTELOOT | NATASJA MABESOONE | MARIJKE VASEY

opening: 14/12/2019 | 5-10pm

15/12/2019 - 19/01/2020

'Reflections in Transition’ shows five artists whose practice is connected by the act of taking an image or idea and disconnecting it from its original meaning by either reproducing, reinstalling and recontextualising the original image or idea.

As you see a reflection in a mirror, the reflected image is not real. Although it refers to the original situation, it is reversed in another dimensional setting. When adding another mirror, an infinite reflection will appear which can completely distort the original situation. Nevertheless, it still refers to the original situation. Imagining this repeated reflection as an on-going process, can eventually result in a new dimension of meaning for the spectator who only observes a moment of the reflection in transition.

Marlies De Clerck (Heist BE, 1988) works and lives in Brussels. De Clerck’s painting often have a direct link to the Belgian sense of humour and irony. Obviousnesses and customs are taken out of context and re-actualised. The everyday is isolated and reinterpreted. Painting as a mirror for our existence.  In ‘Reflections in Transition’, De Clerck shows a series of paintings representing horses.

Th paradox of them being the universal symbol of freedom, detained by a human presence outside of the canvas, is not only an investigation into the change of the status of the theme, but also a personal investigation into the tradition of painting itself.The titles of the works refer to characters from liturature and popular culture.

In December 2019 Marlies De Clerck had her solo ‘Slice Of Life’ at M HKA (INBOX), was laureate and was awarded the honorable mention at ArtContest, Bxl and in 2017 finished her Residency Cité Internationale Des Art, Paris.

Erlend Grytbakk Wold (Trondheim,NO, 1986) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. His paintings show the very moment where we don’t see clearly, the place between seeing and understanding, and ask us to think about what this experience entails. Painting with watercolor on unprimed linen, with red, yellow and blue - the primary colors that became emblematic for modernism and the Neoplasticism’s ideology for harmony and order - spray painted in innumerable alternate layers on the canvas. The method creates a surface that at first glance appears almost brownish, with lines and fields of foggy shadows. Inviting you to spend time in their company, colors and shapes emerge from or fading into the surface of the canvas.

Erlend Grytbakk Wold has a BFA from Oslo Academy of the Arts and an MFA from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden  In 2017 Erlend Grytbakk Wold had his first institutional solo at Trøndelag Center for Contemporary Art in Trondheim, Norway. In 2018, he had a solo in the renowned Kunsterforbundet in Oslo."

Natasja Mabesoone’s (Heist, 1988) works and lives in Brussels. Her work is built around the ephemeral yet elaborate pressing and printing techniques and the playful exploration of imagery and storytelling.

In the soft-etching technique known as 'vernis mou', objects such as flowers, textiles or textured paper are printed in a soft varnish, after which the plate is immersed in etching fluid. This colourful base layer forms a background for other images (drawings or monoprints) that go on top, through or behind them. Natasja Mabesoone’s rather associative, sometimes funny etchings dig into metaphors and play a scenographic and poetic game. Mabesoone’s visual language is inspired by bus trips, Disney's Silly Symphonies, board games, J.F. Vogelaar's essays, S. Mallarmé's poems, Hannah Weiner's sudokus and puns.
The narrative aspect lies rather in the images, the materiality, the underlying cultural associations or worlds of imagination, the etymological background.

In 2019 Natasja Mabesoone finished her residency at WIELS and was a laureate of the ArtContest, Bxl

Max Kesteloot’s (BE, 1990) work combines a love for photography and the urban environment into a practice in which he is always carefully studying and juxtaposing fragments of images and subject matter together.His work develops around the paradox of the apparent absence of a subject in the final image. This gives every detail in his work the status of context. Max is also teaching at LUCA school of arts, Ghent. Where he’s currently instructing Mixed Media.

In January 2019 Kesteloot did a residency at Woning Vanwassenhove (Museum Dhondt- Dhaenens) and at the 15th ArtContest this year his work got granted 2nd laureate with both the Prize Collectioneurs et Amateurs d’art as well as the Prize CENTRALE for contemporary art.

Marijke Vasey (Mechelen,BE 1977) lives and works between London, (UK) and Burgundy (FR). Vasey's influences are drawn from a plethora of sources, from medieval tapestries, Russian religious icons and the borders on illuminated manuscripts to commercial graphics from different eras. These references feed a visual language that has evolved out of a sculptural investigation of the properties of paint. As such Vasey's painted frames are populated by amorphous mouldings, that reference plants, body parts and painted matter itself.

This heady cocktail of influences and imagery is channelled into a painterly language of excess that simultaneously recalls both the painterly flourishes of Rococo and the grandiose gestures of abstract expressionism. This richly ornate, embellished and indulgent brushwork is offset against a seemingly empty void at the centre of the works. As such the painted frames act like an agitant, creeping in from the edges of the canvas, impinging upon the perceived purity of the otherwise monochromatic or gradated colourfields that they surround.

Marijke Vasey  is a recent graduate from the MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College (2019). She previously completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon School of Art.