bodies: noun / verb.

noun

plural noun: bodies.

The physical structure, including the bones, flesh, and organs, of a person or an animal.

verb

3rd person present: bodies

To give material form to something abstract.

Inge Dompas, Caroline Ledoux, Charles Lemaire, Antoine vans, 

Ehrling White.

January 14 – February 18, 2023.

Vernissage Saturday January 14. 16hr -19hr.

The work of Inge Dompas (BE) is about the transiency and volatility of life. The transient figures she observes depict the anonymity of the masses as well as the rare and precious moments of true contact and intimacy. www.ingedompas.com

Caroline Ledoux’s (BE) current focus is our impossibility as a species to exist in the world. Deserted landscapes peopled only with silhouettes, buildings or armchairs serve as fossils of our existence. Her work places us on the threshold of a self-regulating world that chooses to continue without man. instagram.com/ledoux.caroline

The photographs of Charles Lemaire (BE) concentrate on the human body and skin (tattoos, scars, body modifications, aging). With these works, the focus is intensified to the point where the flesh becomes a landscape and the marks of human inhabitants and interaction are clear. www.charleslemaire.eu

The film director Antoine Vans (BE) uses painting as an antidote to some of the lighter aspects of his “other profession”. His canvases embody the frustrations he would otherwise be unable to capture and express. instagram.com/antoine.vans

In describing some of the pieces included in this show, Ehrling White (Ca/US) paraphrased a text by David Hinton. That there is a bridge linking the body itself and the act of art-making. The corporeal form that creates, or lives, and sheds its skin. The leaving it behind, is a natural process. Maybe art making, being very human and laden with history, thoughts, afterthoughts, and second thoughts, is a neurotic attempt to calcify some fraction of it all, give it a body, like a fossil, for others to make of what they wish, or not, long after we’ve moved on. www.ehrlingwhite.com

For installation photos please visit our instagram account.

What remains…

22.10.22 – 23.12.22

Vernissage: Saturday 22nd October 15hr -18hr.

Participating artists: Dilum Coppens, Hadrien Loumaye, Axelle VM Philtjens, Mathieu V Staelens, Francesco Strizzi.

With the question, what remains…? Comes the insinuation that something has been lost, removed, destroyed or forgotten.

What that could have been, be it corporeal, spiritual or temporal, was at the forefront when selecting the work for this first, group exhibition at Gallery Nostrum.

What remains… is an exhibition of five artists living and working in Belgium.

Dilum Coppens (1993 Asse, Be) is preoccupied with meaning and the search for its true nature. He intertwines text and imagery, mythology and modern references. From the surviving fragments of ancient texts (the rest being lost or deliberately destroyed) he invites multiple interpretations that refuse to be tied down.

It appears at first glance, many elements or distractions have been removed from these paintings by Hadrien Loumaye (1999 Brussels, Be). The saturated colour palettes and the delicate nervousness of the gestures, creates an ambiguity to produce canvases that defy their scale.

What remains of you, by Axelle VM Philtjens (2000 Alken, Be) was the starting point for this exhibition. She views the world in layers and transient parts.

To her, photography is a tool to expose and dissect these layers. With the destructive techniques of her experimental polaroids, she exposes facets to the viewer of themselves and the world that surrounds them.

Mathieu V Staelens (1980 Ostend, Be) has a long history of investigating the figure, exploring identity and the personality industry. With his recent subjects, the mask, the costume, the meat has be stripped away. In this exhibition, two of Mathieu’s recent skeletal works are shown alongside two older pieces, where the figure is absent, leaving small but grandly poetic works.

The sculptor Francesco Strizzi (1990 Guissano, Italy), captures the folded stages of origami shapes. It is what remains of this meeting that is framed by the light and shadow on the white plane of the plaster.

For installation photos please visit our instagram account.

‘Hello?’ – Paintings by Chris Dennis.

September  3rd – October  15th,  2022

Gallery Nostrum’s first exhibition features an artist showing for the first time in Belgium but whose work is very familiar to the gallery.

‘Hello?’ will present a carefully selected group of paintings made up from three series he has been working on for over 2 decades.

  ‘My paintings are produced in lieu of a 'real' conversation and display a preoccupation with surface and texture. The figures in these ‘Therianthropic’ pieces, are not some other-worldly creatures from Science fiction. The narratives have been carefully obfuscated and the likeness hidden.  The Suffocates and The Aviarist series are two sides of a manufactured fugue state, from where, I explore ideas about biography /autobiography, authorship and the unreliable source.

The ʻPlease Be Quiet, Please’ paintings are continual. The title comes from the first short-story collection by American author, Raymond Carver called: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976). The paintings are the essence of the larger, more narrative paintings reduced back down to just paint. Like speech or thought bubbles, it spills into, or regurgitates out of disembodied heads from previous works.

‘Things you should have said and the things you wish you hadn’t’.

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. In 2021, after 5 years living and exhibiting in Berlin, Chris moved with his family, to Belgium.