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28/5/2008

Stephan Balleux

think.21 Contemporary gallery, Bruxelles

For his exhibition at think.21 gallery Balleux presents his latest body of work shrewdly entitled Cipher. In this series the investigation of the very identity of painting is carried out by a return to the medium itself. The practice of spreading the principles of painting to other artistic media is abandoned and a need to infiltrate its core is privileged instead. With Cipher, Balleux attempts also to blur our ability to decipher art works. He places fractioned characters within figurative scenes – scenes that are either archival documentary images or film stills - causing a feeling of anxiety in a strange and disturbing space. Painting’s substance takes on human form, becomes an object or diffuses itself in the landscape. By doing so, the artist wishes to give to painting its own identity, to acknowledge its organic essence in constant metamorphosis. While colour was a predominant element in Balleux’s previous work, in Cipher the colour palette seems to narrow do wn to various shades of black and white. What appears to be monochromatic contains nevertheless subtle variations of colours. The choice for black and white is not unintentional. These are colours that refer to the documents of the past, to history, to a heritage of common images. Aside from their cultural references, black and white possess a quality of abstraction that steers to the imaginary and pure representation. By adding or substituting elements in the preexisting image, the artist takes control of the image and inverts its meaning, with the purpose of delivering his vision of reality displayed in pictorial form... as if the world was only painting.

Stephan Balleux (b. 1974) lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp. His work has been exhibited widely in group exhibitions in Belgium and abroad including BOZAR, Brussels, Hisk, Antwerp, Médiatine, Brussels, De Cirk, Gent, Usage externe gallery, Brussels, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen & Mannheimer Kunstverein, Germany, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, Presença gallery, Porto and the 1st International short-film & Video festival in Xiamen, China. His work will be next included in Habeas Corpus exhibition at Le Botanique, Brussels and De Passage exhibition in Paris.

To coincide with the exhibition at think.21, the gallery has published a monograph of his work.

Opening: 29 May 6pm - 9pm

think.21 Contemporary Gallery
Rue du mail, 21 1050 Brussels Belgium

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