Presenting Tara-Eva Kuijpers Wentink
Within the making of my installations I focus on developing a sculptural organic alphabet. I create sculptures and installations that are abstractions of organic shapes: human organs and body parts. In my installations there
exists a tension between the inside and outside of the body. They relate to the beauty and the horror of the complex human physicality and psyche. I am mainly interested in the genderless beauty of body shapes and the mystery of organisms growing into ethereal beings. My work has a tactile appearance which is created by the use of with sensitive materials such as clay, plaster or textiles; materials that are easily molded by using the motions of my own body. The installations I create influence the atmosphere in room, they balance between spacial and sculptural and they make the viewer enter another dimension.
In my graduation work Song of a Source, I have mainly worked with the idea of an organism growing from a source. A source which both contains life and death, expanding itself through the room and communicating its fleshy appearance through its color scheme and use of different tactilities.
Mijn interesse gaat uit naar organische vormen waarbij de schoonheid sterk geconnecteerd is aan haar vergankelijke natuur. Ik maak beelden die op het eerste ogenblik zacht of warm zijn, maar na langer kijken kunnen overgaan in donkerte. Er ontstaat een sluimertoestand waarbinnen een streling zou kunnen veranderen in een wurging. Ik vind het fascinerend dat de aarde ons leven geeft met al haar helende krachten en ons tegelijkertijd kan doden met allesverwoestende bewegingen. Ook fantaseer ik over mogelijke levensvormen die ontstaan nadat onze zelfvernietiging is vervolledigd en de aarde niet meer bestaat zoals zij nu is. Wordt het dan een planeet die gereguleerd wordt door machines of ontstaan er nieuwe dier- en plantsoorten?
Presenting Sien Custers
Groeien, leven, kruipen, wurgen, krioelen, knijpen, voeden,
Gronden, kronkelen, verstikken, verdringen, soppen, ademen, verlaten,
Wenen, verdrinken, trekken, verlangen, vergaan, kneden, breken,
Liefhebben, duwen, knuffelen, slurpen, verpletteren, vervormen, zinken,
Vergeten, jeuken, kietelen, draaien, rotten, negeren, strelen,
Maken, vernielen, verwringen, samenvoegen, versmelten, berijden, uitademen.
Presenting Marie Dreezen
For her series ‘(Un)familiar Sands’, Marie Dreezen spent the last couple of years traveling to the Belgian west coast. A place where people try to flee everyday life only for a couple of months a year, but most of the time it is nearly deserted, home to those who cater to the flood of people.
When this flood retreats, a new universe opens up. The abandoned vacation homes, complimented by the solitude of the landscape, form an unknown world of emptiness and isolation showing the hidden character of the Belgian west coast.
Wandering through these sandscapes you get lost in the visions of another world and as the night falls you get drawn deeper into these mystical scenes. A landscape both familiar and unfamiliar.
Presenting Marlena Owczarek
I don’t exist at all, in any time or space. This drives me to look for reminders of pure existence. Existing surroundings in the now live their life, and form the future. In particular it is the present that interests me, the marks of the past are prominently displayed, and the future is still unknown. Photography captures one moment that with every second becomes more distant. The dialogue between new and old technology in photography are the pillars of my work. It’s all based in my interest for growth and reviewing past mistakes to create a better future. My craving for control over the moment stops, when I capture the moment, for the camera does the rest.
My photographs depict how I react to my surroundings. Analogue photography became a meditative way to cope with reality, creating a discourse between me and the real world. The repetitiveness of the dark room is like a ritual, experimenting is looking for answers. Not necessarily in the scientific realm but more on a level where I focus on myself and my perception of reality.
The use of transparencies stems from my lust for the illusion of a translucent being. A pure existence that only lives as an expectation in our minds. Something that escapes all the vileness of the real (physical) world, a craving for something greater than what we are.
Presenting Jax Buytaert
Benzodia
Het nachtdier ontwaakt onder een zwartsatijnen sluier. Het beweegt zich op de tonen van duisternis en elektriciteit. Het strakke ritme van realiteit en regels gaat over in een contrasterende cadans. De overdrukte van de dag verglijdt in nachtelijk zoeken, vinden, zoeken, vinden, zoeken, vinden, zoeken.
Welkom op het Wit Bal.
Presenting Amira M Rabet
My sculptures seek to capture the talismanic essence of the human figure and more abstract connotations of love, loss and humanity. Working with clay retains a directness that reflects the process of handcraft. It captures a sense of wonder in the ordinary and ultimately preserves a frozen and re-imagined history.
In my latest series “The Talisman Guardians” I present different characters, each of them with particularities that distinguish them from the masses, but yet they embody a group unity. They are not all identical in color, but they resemble in material, namely ceramic. Clay appeals to the physical, the every day and an
emotional memory. It shows us where we come from. With clay, I build a bridge between the raw material, myself, the world and new possibilities. Rocks are charged with energy and give clues about the physical past of the earth. Almost like a secret language, they contain clues about past lives, cultural history and remind us of the cycles of nature and the passage of time. This installation reminds me that I have a strong natural base, which keeps guardians around me, who have their own power.
Presenting Amber Geuns
As a painter, I like to compare my way of working with directing a play. Although I am not only the director but also the costume designer, screenwriter, set designer, but I also perform every role in the play.
I start from the idea of a costume that I also create myself. I do a performance in this costume at a location that I have chosen, or in front of a set that I actually have in my studio. Mostly using a camera with a timer. But it also happens that I ask someone close to me to take the pictures. From the moment I start painting, I select fragments from different photos that I combine in a painting.
Presenting Susanna Ingignoli
“Play and reflect” is a project born thanks to the conversations with the people I had the opportunity to meet in my new beginning in Antwerp, last year, and who in most cases were, like me, just arrived in the city. Talking to people from different parts of the world made me reflect on how different the “obstacles” to arriving in a new city can be, often simply due to different nationalities, or how much in a world where everything seems “within reach”, we are still so tied to certain stereotypes. In this digital age in which facial recognition claims to define human beings by collecting data, we realize that in reality we still know little about the people we share this planet with. The vinyls I created also represent a collection, but that has nothing to do with our aesthetic traits. Each vinyl summarizes a small story of the participants who took part in my workshop, during which, in random pairs, they had to carry out 10 different activities (which gave the name to the 10 vinyl tracks) to get to know each other in alternative and engaging ways. The activities were the pretext to stimulate broader conversations, some more curious, others more personal, others more profound. The content of the vinyls tells a lot about these people without the need to show their faces properly. Reflected images do not reveal to us a copy of reality, but they help us to observe it in a different way and to open ourselves to change perspective."
