An outside world overloaded with all too often negative messages and images demands a catharsis, an aesthetic purification. From this reality, Leen Van Tichelen (1981) filters with great sensitivity a personal story that she dissects according to her own abstract codes. The artist works with delicate building blocks: paper, textile, wood. A noble craft lies hidden in these materials, which are produced by nature but worked on by man. The uninhibited combination of wooden slats, scraps, head pins and pieces of cloth leads to surprising results. Both the works on paper - sometimes framed, sometimes directly attached to the wall - and the sculptural installations appear organically in space, almost like beings or animate objects that spread their wings and take on a life of their own. © Melanie Deboutte

In the work of Philine Vanrafelghem (°1985), existing images are purified of everything that does not belong to the essence. The result is a still life in which every reference to materiality has been left out. A dematerialisation that explores the limits of representation. The emphasis lies on form, colour and the surface of the canvas. Through a transparent and layered manner of painting, the untreated cotton canvas also takes on a determining role in the image or in the work itself. The work is tactile and vulnerable. It seduces to touch. The end result is an archetype, a primal image whose full understanding as a three-dimensional entity requires a synthesis of visual and tactile perceptions.

Artists: Philine Vanrafelghem , Leen Van Tichelen