Shadows and reflections - Group Show

With the stencil artists Jef Aérosol, Blek le Rat, C215, Miss.Tic, Kris Trappeniers and Vhils.

The exhibition emphasizes the variety of stencil’s artistic forms. First, by the variety of supports, ranging from walls to installations including canvas, and then by the diversity of techniques used by the artists. The most traditional ones cut their figures out of cardboard. They renew the ancestral technique, like Blek le Rat, the legend of the movement, constantly quoted as an example by Banksy. Others, like Kris Trappeniers, present the stencil as a real work of art while the young Portuguese artist Vhils completely renews the technique. He « stencils » frontages with jackhammer, acid and burin by attacking the walls. In his Scratching the surface project he even makes the walls blow up and he then films it in a video which becomes a work of art in itself. Through this technique, Vhils does not control the process of creation anymore; he says: “It’s never me who determines the final form of a piece. I never have and never want to have absolute control over what I’m doing – I like the unexpected and the uncertain.”Miss.Tic exhibits her games of language in works full of poetry. Jef Aérosol offers a rock universe in which he embodies cinema or music stars by alternating shadows and reflections, which is completely characteristic of his work. C215 paints his faces on recycled objects and, this way, he fills the space, with a three-dimensional installation.

image : courtesy Ian Cox