MARTIN STREIT
12 September – 19 October 2024
Blurred Life
Up close, it’s the inability of the eye to focus that strikes. A blur that the human brain cannot contain … Martin Streit’s works have a strange effect: impermanence of life, inaccessibility of things, lack of control and disintegration of structures in favor of an unconscious that we often tend to forget.
It is all that which shows us a mysticism of the appearance of objects and beings which carries with it something of the unfathomable mystery of life itself. Streit likes and voluntarily maintains the blurring, scrambling, effect of the process. “I like that it is not too concrete, not too descriptive. We must not show too much the reality. It’s like a sweet dream.“ This blur makes his images fragile, elusive and poetic. Everything is drowned in a mist that is both disturbing and dreamlike. “It’s nothing,” concludes the artist. „What matters to me is to create a poetry, an emotion by light, the vibration of color and shape. There is neither concept nor narration. It’s the vibration of the image alone.”
Extract from the article: „Les apparitions floutées de Martin Streit“ by Aliénor Debrocq in MAD (Soir) p.45 of 09/13/2017
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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VERNISSAGE
12 September 17 – 21 h
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PARTICIPATING AT
RendezVous –
Brussels Art Week
rendezvousbxl.com
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OPENING HOURS
Fri and Sat 14:30 – 18 h
and by appointment
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SABINE TRESS
11 April – 30 May
Esther Verhaeghe – art concepts transforms itself into an experimental laboratory. This unprecedented and experimental ‘capsule’ project will transform the gallery into a kind of laboratory, an artistic think tank that will enrich the perspectives of all those who climb the steps of number 3 Avenue Guillaume Macau.
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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VERNISSAGE
11 April 17 – 20 h
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PRESENTATION PROJECT ERG
17 April 17 – 20 h
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PRÉ-SUMMER PARTY
15 May 17 – 22 h
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OPENING HOURS
Fri and Sat 14:30 – 18 h
and by appointment
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Sabine Tress’s paintings can be understood as constantly reforming spaces of possibility, in which another form of expression takes over, to a point where words are no longer enough to describe emotions or give space to emotionality as such. Large gestural forms in the shape of hearts or clouds, layers upon layers, arcs that trace their parallel paths through the various backgrounds and intermediaries; vibrant colours that clash explosively, connect with each other, recede in turmoil or overlap harmoniously; dense, luminous surfaces interacting with airy, free lines; white, transparent veils covering bright neon colours – the uncontrollable collides with controlled gestures. Traces and streaks of flowing paint, surfaces on which undissolved pigments accumulate, combine with curved, composed forms. Sabine Tress’s paintings involve a tension between the memory of what was felt during the creative process and the immediate feelings evoked when looking at them (Feelings can be everything and nothing, a flicker, a flow).
8 February – 28 March 2024
A Tapestry of Shared Journeys
An exhibition by JESSICA HILLTOUT & VIRGINIE SAMYN
The exhibition “A Tapestry of Shared Journeys” presents 12 photographs by Jessica Hilltout, intimate words from Virginie Samyn, and Jessica’s logbook, a visual map of this journey.
When I learned that I had breast cancer, Jessica suggested keeping a record of my life throughout my treatment. It lasted a year.
This exhibition reveals the intimate journey of the artist Jessica Hilltout, and me, Virginie Samyn, intertwining our paths to form a complex tapestry of shared experiences. These delicate moments are captured with finesse in the presented works, where each glimpse seems to weave subtle threads of a story that is both unique and universal.
Jessica Hilltout is a Belgian-English artist based in Brussels. Her childhood unfolded outside of Europe until the age of 18. As a young woman, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography in England. She has always been moved by the life force that manifests even in the most difficult situations. Her approach involves nurturing connection, experiencing these moments and capturing images, thus providing an intimate perspective on resilience in the face of adversity.
Thanks to Jessica for this immersive experience that sculpted a distinctive dynamic, prompting a reinvention of our relationship with ourselves and others, through the eyes of the other and one’s own gaze.
Thanks to Esther our host, who, by opening her space to us, gives us a true stage to extend our journey to you.
Virginie Samyn
In sharing, I reveal myself.
Virginie lives with her companion Jean-Louis.
They have three children, including Eloise, who passes away at birth.
The year following the tragic loss of their daughter, Virginie is diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I share my wish to photograph her on her path to recovery. She agrees. The silence of the forest, the sound of footsteps, profound discussions, heavy breath. My camera and voice recorder become the discreet witnesses of her struggle, her strength. I probe Virginie’s soul through photography. Illuminate the unseen. Honor the suffering and sovereignty of her experience.”
Jessica Hilltout
Nurturing connection. Feeling. Photographing.
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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OPENING HOURS
Fri and Sat 14:30 – 18 h
or by appointment
+32 487 39 40 29
(closed from the 24th Febuary to the 10th March)
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30 November 2023 – 12 January 2024
Extension until 26 January!
COSMOS
YUNA DENIS
For the first time, Esther Verhaeghe, in collaboration with Sophie Gohr, is showing the work of the young artist YUNA DENIS, who has just graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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VERNISSAGE
30 November 15 – 21 h
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OPENING HOURS
Fri and Sat 14:30 – 18 h
and by appointment
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After a Master’s degree in Textiles in Nantes, Yuna has just completed her second Master’s degree in
Painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where she has chosen to work in a variety of media, including sculpture. It’s a practice without frontiers at the crossroads of painting and sculpture. With this exhibition, Esther Verhaeghe is reiterating her desire to focus on the presentation and representation of the work of women artists and the young Belgian art scene. The upcoming exhibition is part of a temporary collaboration with Sophie Gohr, artist, curator and “talent scout”.
Yuna Denis, born in Douarnenez (FR) in 1993, explores painting through its haptic and emotional qualities. This quest for the sensitive takes shape through experimentation with “doing” and “time”. The artist meditates on what contemplation is and plays with the emergence of forms and strata with multiple narratives. The term “strata” echoes the Earth’s mineral composition, as well as the many episodes that have fuelled history. Yuna Denis applies layers of paint in the form of a palimpsest, seeking to reveal
the metamorphoses that make up her work.
19 October – 24 November 2023
SOLO SHOW / NEW WORKS
CHRISTOPHE BOURDEAUX
For the very first time, Esther Verhaeghe – art concepts shows the work of Brussels artist Christophe Bourdeaux.
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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VERNISSAGE
19 October 17 – 21 h
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OPENING HOURS
Fri and Sat 14:30 – 18 h
and by appointment
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Christophe Bourdeaux’s works are those that resist untimely labelling. Studded with brightly colored round pellets, diffuse ovoid shapes, perforated fabric prints and, more rarely, flowers, they demand that you take the time to look at them, to let your eye get used to them. Despite the dominance of the three primary colors, between matter and light, they give themselves away gently, according to their own internal dynamic, a little like the luminous spots that appear on the retina when we have contemplated the sky.
7 September – 12 October 2023
APPROACH
BRITTA BOGERS
For the first time, Esther Verhaeghe Art Concepts is taking part in the now well-known Brussels Gallery Weekend. On this occasion, the gallery will present a solo exhibition dedicated to German artist Britta Bogers, entitled “Approach”. It is a great opportunity for Esther Verhaeghe to celebrate her gallery’s first decade.
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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VERNISSAGE
7 September 17 – 21 h
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BRUSSELS GALLERY WEEKEND
7 September 17 – 21 h
8 September 11 – 19 h
9 September 11 – 19 h
10 September 11 – 19 h
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OPENING HOURS
Fri and Sat 14:30 – 18 h
and by appointment
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Britta Bogers (*1964, lives in Cologne) experiments with serial variations on basic abstract forms of color and line. Starting with graphic formulas that sometimes recall speech balloons, labels, or cut-out patterns, she creates constellations of elements that resemble each other and cover the surfaces of large sheets of paper; their arrangement, however, permits the viewer to see obvious deviations, reflecting individual work processes. In this way, Bogers creates an open, provisory visual order, whose internal balance must be continually put to the test—therefore keeping the viewer’s eye in constant motion. On smaller-sized paper and high-density fiberboard, however, the works consist of more compact visual constructs and inventive forms, which Bogers derives from the interplay of painting and drawing. (Stefan Rasche)
1 – 26 JUNE 2023
NATURA
Formes Libres
Esther Verhaeghe – art concepts is pleased to present for the first time Formes Libres (pseudonym of the Brussels artist Sophie Gohr) with her new very poetic work of jewelry and ceramics
“The material is a language (…) art must be born from the material.”
Jean Dubuffet
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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VERNISSAGE
1 June 18 – 21 h
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OPENING HOURS
1 – 11 June
daily from 14 – 19 h
Fri + Sat
16/17 + 23/24 June
from 14 – 18 h
and by appointment
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The main source of inspiration for the jewelry and ceramics of Formes Libres (Sophie Gohr’s chosen artist name) is nature.
As a curious gleaner, she constantly collects plants and shells during her walks. For years, hundreds of specimens of a great diversity have been archived. This research and collection are the source of her creation. They embody his anchorage in the elements, in particular the earth and water, which nourish her artistic activity.
From this paradigm, her imagination does not form images to represent the elements, it magnifies them. Guided by her quest for serenity and authenticity, she offers a body of work and objects of great formal purity, sometimes evoking silence or the subtle sound of the wind in the branches, sometimes the waves on the beach.
For her jewellery, Formes Libres makes plant forms sacred by dipping them in a bath of gold. Following the example of ancestral cultures (Egyptian, Inca, Indian, Greek) the use of this noble metal reveals the preciousness of natural forms while revealing the richness of textures, veins, etc. This gilding process takes place after a long period of three years of drying of the plants. With this “precious herbarium”, Formes Libres underlines the temporality and the material transformation of nature and as such her jewellery transcends the sole aesthetic dimension, as these frozen plant forms lead to a questioning of the finitude of nature and of the human being.
In parallel, her ceramic practice combines kneading and experimenting with clay, stoneware, porcelain, colour pigments and glaze. Her aim is not to create perfect, utilitarian or smooth objects. On the contrary, she dares to take risks and sometimes discovers unexpected results once the firing is over. It is from this alchemy that new combinations are born. The results are organic and subtle, evoking the foam of the waves on the beach, volcanic craters, the ocean floor, and the various colours found in the landscape.
Both the jewellery and the ceramics of Formes Libres are condensed from nature and celebrate the beauty of our much-mistreated planet earth.
Carine Fol
Doctor in art history
Curator and author
19 APRIL – 24 MAY 2023
Danse de travers I Anniversary exhibition
CHRISTINE REIFENBERGER
This coming May 11, the gallery Esther Verhaeghe – art concepts celebrates its 10th anniversary and its 10-year collaboration with German artist Christine Reifenberger, with Reifenberger’s solo exhibition entitled “Danse de Travers”. The exhibition will run from 19 April to 24 May at the gallery’s new permanent space at 3 Avenue Guillaume Macau (Etangs d’Ixelles) in 1050 Brussels.
YouTube Link: Vocal and Dance Performance (3,5 min)
@ Finissage of the Solo Show Christine Reifenberger UPDATE COLOGNE #5, February 2022
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
_____________________
VERNISSAGE
19 April 17 – 21 h
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BIRTHDAY BASH
11 May 18 h
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OPENING HOURS
Thu to Sat 14:30 – 18 h
and by appointment
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Christine Reifenberger, based in Cologne, creates objects that, even if they are sometimes “paintings”, intervene in the space with colours and shapes. They appear fragile and raw at the same time, ephemeral and extremely present, asserting their form and colour as events, sometimes slightly graceful, sometimes powerful. They are never “flat”, but the transition seems fluid as Reifenberger extends painting from the surface to three-dimensional sculpture in space. Her pictorial language is characterised by the observation of natural phenomena – terms such as growth, dissolution, transformation, vegetation, clouds and glaciers come to mind. We encounter these objects as strange artefacts that bear witness to life processes as well as to the artist’s working method, in which movement plays a central role (Melanie Weidemüller).
Esther Verhaeghe – art concepts was founded in 2013 in Brussels. The gallery is dedicated to contemporary art with a special focus on the German creative scene as well as women artists. The artists, works and exhibitions question themes such as fragility and vulnerability, presence and absence, and how to make the invisible tangible. Impermanence, movement and transformation are the common thread running through the works and artists exhibited and promoted by the gallery.
Sabine Tress
Heart-shaped, large, gestural forms, layers upon layers, arcs that trace their parallel paths across the different back- and middle grounds; vibrant colors that clash explosively, connect to each other, drift apart in a turmoil or overlap harmoniously; dense, luminous surfaces in interplay with airy, free lines; white, transparent veils covering radiant neon colors — the uncontrollable collides with conducted gestures. Traces and streaks of running paint, surfaces on which undissolved pigment accumulates, combine with curved, composed forms. Sabine Tress’ paintings imply a tension between the memory of what was felt during the process of creation, and the immediate feelings that are evoked in the moment of viewing them. (Feelings can be everything and nothing, a flicker, a flow)
selected artwork
1 FEB – 22 MAR 2023
Irene Weingartner
ENTANGLED QUANTUMS
PLACE
3 AVENUE G. MACAU
(Côté Étangs)
1050 Brussels
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VERNISSAGE
1 FEB 17 – 20:30 h
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OPENING HOURS
Fri and Sat 14:30 – 18 h
and by appointment
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The series “Seismographic recording originated from the body” forms the main strand in Irene Weingartner’s creative process. From there, her drawing works branch out in various directions and are arising as; architectural models, moving images and drawings that grow into the third dimension.
Her fragile pencil and ink drawings, made up of a multitude of small strokes and dots, come together in their entirety to form a concentrated image.
As a result, dots and strokes detach themselves from abstraction and a concrete image emerges, such as a landscape, architectural structures or celestial constellations.
Weingartner’s works are often inspired by the natural sciences, which has already resulted in various collaborations with researchers.
Irene Weingartner (*1971 in Lucerne/Switzerland) lives and works in Düsseldorf and Zurich. Following her training as a structural draughtswoman, she studied at art colleges in Lucerne, Berlin and Chelsea College in London (MA). Her work is shown in national and international solo and group exhibitions.
