Justine Lambrechts’ practice explores the integration of the sculptural within the painted. By focusing on materiality as a starting point, she studies the rendition of abstract clay and stone sculptures in relation to paint. The translation of these earthly materials, with their own tangible properties and medium-specific logic, causes a loss of context and feeling of alienation of the subject when brought to a flat surface, internalizing the sculptures’ material properties. In these trompe-l’oeils, a friction is created between the depicted subject and it’s painted counterpart.

This estrangement amplifies when exaggerating with scale. Small stone and clay models are both being enlarged and shrunk. Moreover, they are stripped of any context by not providing them with a background. As a consequence, the materiality of the isolated object itself becomes the main point of reference rather than its surrounding and context. By manipulating the depiction of these naturally shaped objects, they become subtly infiltrated by the artificial.