Exit Strategy is about how we always find a way to shift perspectives, to move from one project to the next.
In Chris Gillis' work, visual elements are taken out of their original context, recycled and deconstructed to ultimately form the foundation for a new story. She works with paper scraps, ready-made images, and textures from printmaking. Chris draws from a variety of sources. Aspects of biographical and everyday perception, elements from landscape and culture. These become intertwined with each other or are reduced to abstract areas of colour. All these sources undergo a recycling process. In a collage-like manner, reality is dismantled and reconstructed at will. The means have become the motif.
Zena Van den Block's work is a perfect match for Chris’s. It reflects her fascination with popular culture and the do-it-yourself ethos. She is drawn to seemingly banal aspects of everyday life that often go unnoticed. Her work spans multiple mediums, as she explores which materials best convey her underlying ideas. Zena incorporates jigsaw puzzles, commercial printed matter, building materials, and digital images amongst others. Photography is also often present in both the process and the final product of her work, but she approaches it as a medium similar to paint or clay. Her goal is to draw attention to the beauty in our everyday environment and expose absurd situations through humour.
Concrete is Jef Meyer’s material of choice. From smooth and silky to rugged and rough, and from mat to shiny and every gradation in between, every piece is stunningly unique. In Exit Strategy we present a selection of his more colourful works.
Besides pieces by these three artists, we are also proud to include in the show In a Nutshell, a recent neon sculpture by Filip Collin, and an untitled ceramic sculpture by Peter Aerts.
Artists: Chris Gillis, Zena Van den Block, Jef Meyer, Filip Collin, Peter Aerts