GALLERY NOSTRUM GOES TO JAPAN -

Charlotte Usagi Gallery (JP) with the Support of Gallery Nostrum (BE) presents,

‘Please Be Quiet, Please’  静かにしてね

Paintings by Chris Dennis (UK)

Accompanied by,

Silence 沈黙

A collaborative project by Monique Prignon (BE).

2025.12.27 – 2026.01.04

For his first exhibition in Japan, British artist Chris Dennis (1974) has created a suite of 10 specially produced paintings to be presented with the generous support of the Charlotte Usagi Gallery in Yokohama, Japan from December 27th, 2025 until January 4th, 2026.

These paintings are part of the ongoing ʻPlease Be Quiet, Please’, series that started in 2013.

Chris has stated that they are works “produced in lieu of a real conversation” and despite their often small and intimate scale, highlight his preoccupation with surface and texture.

The title comes from the first short-story collection by American author, Raymond Carver (1938-88) called: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976).

These paintings are the essence of his larger, more narrative, often autobiographical works, reduced back to just paint.

The pools of paint and other media, resemble the speech or thought bubbles, emblematic in Japanese Manga and western comic books / Bande dessinée that are so popular and important in his current adopted home of Belgium. It spills into, or is regurgitated out of disembodied (fish) heads from previous works.

For him, the fish (a common symbol in many cultures and religions, not only Christianity) is an anonymous everyman, a cipher. They are depicted ‘out of water’, gasping for air? Help? Answers?

The paints flows, pools and coagulates like the things you should have said and the things you wish you hadn’t.

To contrast the paintings, Chris invited the Belgian multi-discilplinary artist and fellow Gallery Nostrum stablemate, Monique Prignon to create pieces from the starting point of ‘Silence’ the 1966 novel by Japanese author, Shūsaku Endō (1923-96).

Monique works with texts, printed materials and often (as is the case here) whole books. Before she starts, Monique consumes the works, the words and she does not limit herself to her native language of French. She searches for meaning before she begins to add, subtract and manipulate, with the ever-present and so symbolic, red-thread, running throughout the pages.

Like the source materials both artists started from, the pieces complement, contrast and contradict each other. They offer counterpoints between light and dark, east and west, noise and silence and an opportunity for reflection in the search for peace.

Chris Dennis (1974) grew up in England. He studied at Bournemouth Arts University, completed his BA (Hons) at the University of Wolverhampton and was awarded his MFA from the University of Art in San Francisco (USA). He has lived and exhibited across the United States, New Zealand and Europe, including solo exhibitions in San Francisco, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Auckland, Zürich and Berlin. In 2021, after 5 years living and exhibiting in Berlin, Chris moved with his family, to Belgium. In addition to his work as an artist, since 2022, he has been the owner and director of Gallery Nostrum, an independent contemporary art gallery in Namur, Belgium.

Monique Prignon is an artist originally from Brussels, now working in the province of Namur. Since childhood, like many of us, she has painted, cut, assembled, glued, knotted, wrapped, hung, looped, knitted, built, installed, written and photographed.

In 1995, she decided to train at the Académie des Beaux-Art in Wavre, and continued at the Ateliers 'grafische Vormgeving' at the Rhok, in Etterbeek, Brussels and the Ecole des Arts, Braine l'Alleud. She has taken part in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Belgium and internationally including her solo exhibition ‘Marcher entre les mots/ Walking between the words’ at Gallery Nostrum (BE) 2024.

Over the years, respectful of the environment, her practice has led her to use recycled materials and limit herself to the use of nature-friendly tools.  Monique’s unique, manipulated and repurposed books have travelled the world, finding resting places (however fleeting) in such notable places as Turner Contemporary, Margate (UK) and The Kitazawa Bookstore in Jimbocho, Tokyo (JP). If you choose to take one with you, she invites you to please message her at monique.prignon@gmail.com with a photo and mention @creationsdemonique on any posts.

CharlotteUsagiGallery @charlotte.usagi