Germaine Kruip (b. 1970, Castricum, the Netherlands) lives and works between Brussels, London and Amsterdam. Her practice is rooted in the distinct yet interconnected realms of stage (theatre, cinema, performance), architecture, and visual arts. Initially trained as a scenographer for the theatre, Kruip uses light, sound and space as materials to create situations where meaning emerges through the viewer’s experience.
Remanence is Kruip’s third solo exhibition with Axel Vervoordt Gallery. The title refers to what remains after its source has disappeared: a trace, an afterimage, resonance. It is this space between presence and absence that Kruip explores throughout the exhibition.
Bringing together light, sound and sculpture, the exhibition becomes a mutable perceptual field, extending sculpture beyond its formal and material confines into the realms of resonance, light, atmosphere and duration, where the material and immaterial are held in continuous exchange.
The Escher Gallery has been transformed into a darkened environment. In the first space, 'Ray' (2025) and 'Horizon' (2025) slowly appear and disappear. Light appears and disappears, yet its presence continues in the eye as an afterimage.
Further inside, 'Focal Point' (2025) turns the gallery into a field of light and shadow, exploring darkness as an active medium. At the centre of the space, 'Pendula' (2026), a monumental brass sculpture made with Thein Brass, hangs motionless. Visitors can activate the work with a beater. Sound fills the space, slowly fades, leaving its own trace.
On the first floor, Kruip continues this dialogue between material and perception with the 'Untitled Circle works'. Reflective surfaces produce circles of light on the wall, while 'Untitled Circle Stainless Steel', 'Phantom' creates a circle through shadow.
Kruip’s works unfold gradually. They ask us to slow down, to remain with a changing image or a fading sound. In Remanence, one moment lingers within the next: perception itself becomes part of the work.
Artists: Germaine Kruip
