ABOUT

(Brussels, 1988°)

Lives and works in Brussels.

My work focuses on gesture, process and materiality.

The prevailing surplus of visual and verbal information encourages me to propose a practice based on instinct, where the exchange is more physical and emotional than intellectual. Before the word, there is perception.

Favoring natural materials (charcoal, earth, pigments, stones, gold), my works reveal the expressive possibilities of matter and are inscribed in a tangible reality.

Each element is chosen for its singularity, intrinsic beauty and visual presence. The resulting narrative is personal to each individual, and is not imposed from the outset.

Roughness is sought insofar as it corresponds to the living, natural and mineral world. The reduction of the aesthetic vocabulary coincides with the desire to free oneself from excessive individuality and move towards a certain sobriety.

A number of themes nonetheless emerge, such as the search for immensity, our relationship with natural spaces such as oceans, montains and deserts, and the notion of ascent and fall.

Text, Gwenaëlle de Spa, 2019.

Louise Van Reeth's installations are more about raw material than nature. Charcoal, marble, soil or gold in the form of volatile leaves make up the repertoire with which the artist works. Pure elements drawn from the landscape. Noble materials confront other, sometimes less noble, materials, complementing each other within the same space recomposed by the artist.

Indeed, it's not a question of composing by imposing a form on the material. The artist's practice is more like recomposition, "doing with". For she accords a certain respect, almost restraint, to the natural element she exploits. Since each stone has been shaped by the hazards of time, and each piece of charcoal holds in its intrinsic quality the history of the tree it once was, the aim here is to carefully select, choose or retain the key element in the composition, so that it contributes to the creation of a harmonious whole.

It is through the form of the mandala that this harmonious whole is expressed. In Buddhist tradition, the mandala is the spiritual representation of the cosmos. Its concentric circular form is a medium for the mediation of spiritual knowledge.

Taken from a psychoanalytical perspective, Jung sees the mandala as a description and symbolization of the psychic totality, whose transcendent function is driven by the living symbol and whose vehicle is the dream. Based on this approach, Louise Van Reeth's mandalas are a personal exploration of a universal theme.

In her diptychs, color plays an important role, playing with the natural materials that inhabit the work. In contrast to the inward-focusing found in mandalas, here the work tends to overflow the frame in a quest for an infinite balance between the organic and the geometric, between saturated pigment and soft, natural tones.

Slow, meticulous work echoes the gestures of artisanal practices, exalting the qualities of the mineral and the organic. Raw, just-assembled, their appearance nonetheless derives from a history to be considered over the long term. These sets are a world unto themselves. They are a pursuit of balance, a quest to capture the fleeting, suspended moment. Louise Van Reeth's desire to "make" these "material" elements exist together underlines the transitory nature of all things.

EXHIBITIONS

2023 Artist Meeting group show, Knokke's Casino, Knokke Heist, Belgium.

Group show 40 Talents curatée par Antonio Nardone, Brussels. Installation solo show, Festival des 5 saisons, curation Lieux-communs, Chaudfontaine, Belgium. Solo show, Affordable Art Fair Brussels, Tour & Taxis, Brussels.

2022 We Are Artist, group show, Châtelain, Brussels. Nationa(a)l Artist, group show of Belgian artists and designer, Tour et Taxis, Brussels. This is Not Belgium, group show of Belgian artists, Brussels.

'Au-Delà', Exposition collective au cimetière de Namur, Lieux-Communs, Belgium. 'Terre Promise', avec Zeli Bauwens, Celeste Castelot, Aymeraude du Couëdic, Agathe Dupérou,

Eglise de Xhignesse, Hamoir, Belgium.

Solo show 'Paysage Imaginaire', Fort de Saint Héribert en partenariat avec Lieux-Communs.

Solo show with Macadam Gallery invites Louise Van Reeth, David Lloyd, Bruxelles.

2021 'Lumière Fossile', group show with Amélie Scotta, Michiko Van de Velde, Beersel, Belgium.

'Métamorphose', group show with Alessandro Filippini,

Le Beau a une Adresse, Brussels.

Bily Art Walk, group show with Trong Gia Nguyen, Alessandro Filippini, Sahar Saadaoui,

Guy Leclef, Le Beau a une Adresse, Brussels.

WLD collective, Affordable art fair, Tour & Taxis, Brussels.

2020 Balthasar, Group show, Sablon, Brussels.

2019 Nationa(a)l, Espace Vanderborght, Brussels.