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 and the notion of ascent and fall.

My series of monochrome paintings, Untitled, refers to the experience of wide open spaces, deserts and plains where the horizon seems infinite. These vast expanses where nothing stops the mind, where the gaze embraces a globality it recognizes, these great spaces that reassure us, inviting us to melt into them and reminding us that everything is there and that we are part of it.

The physical work evokes a dialogue between the body and the memory of an experience in the landscape. It celebrates the materiality of the work of art as an open door to an elsewhere of the sensory order, and a certain quest for freedom emancipated from the immediacy of life.

Louise Van Reeth's artistic practice explores the profound connections between matter, color, and the human experience, delving into how these elements resonate with our emotions and inner energies. Her work seeks to highlight the expressive power of the alliance between color and material, celebrating their ability to evoke sensory and emotional depth.

Her creations invite us to move beyond the immediacy of daily life and enter a sensory realm where serenity and self-forgetfulness prevail. Through subtle references to landscapes, traces, and textures, her paintings transcend mere representation, offering a meditative space where one can experience quietude and reconnect with the essence of living.

At the core of her work lies an exploration of the bond between humans and their natural environment. Louise investigates the unique sense of strength and fulfillment that emerges when traversing vast landscapes—be it mountains, plains, or oceans. For her, the natural world is more than a backdrop; it is an active participant in shaping our identities. The tactile and visual engagement with elements like earth, stone, and water restores a sense of belonging to something infinite and timeless, rooted in the ancient rhythms of our planet.

This reflection naturally extends to notions of time and memory. Louise's work questions how we define ourselves within the vast timeline of earthly existence while remaining aware of our fleeting human lives. She believes that our understanding of time is deeply influenced by our immersion in nature, where time flows differently than in the constructed rhythms of modern society.

Her artistic gestures are spontaneous and emotional, informed by materials like earth, marble, and pigments that capture the memory of intimate encounters with landscapes. Inspired by movements such as American Abstract Expressionism and Italian Arte Povera, as well as the textures of nature—a leaf’s veins, a stone’s patina—her work transforms these impressions into vibrant, universal symbols.

"The act of creation brings profound satisfaction, infusing spirit into matter," she says. Her works radiate energy and vibration, inviting viewers to engage with them personally, each through their own emotional lens. Like fragments of memory rendered in art, her creations achieve autonomy, encouraging contemplation and offering a shared yet deeply personal narrative to those who encounter them.

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

2024 20 x 24, group show, Galerie Nardone, Bruxelles.

Group show, intime, Chastres, Belgium.

2023 20 x 24, group show, Galerie Nardone, Bruxelles.

Solo presentation, Le Beau a Une Adresse, Bruxelles.

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.