Renato Nicolodi seeks to evoke a universal sacrality in his work. His sculptures and paintings imagine spaces with corridors and stairs leading to closed-off passageways. Light and shade draw the gaze of the spectator to the inside of the construction, which remains invisible. The core of the work seems to conserve some sort of emptiness. The artist refers to archetypical buildings from past times and cultures, stripping them of their original function, ornament, and dogma.

This special secon...

Tami Amit’s self-titled monograph compiles reproductions of her recent work on paper and canvas. Amit’s practice is a particular mode of action painting which processes childhood memories and issues of self identity and expression. This is her first monograph as a painter.

Cindy Wright creates large-scale oil paintings on canvas. At first glance the monumental still life paintings appear to be photo-realistic, using the photographic methods of cropping compositions and intense source lighting. But on closer inspection, the range of mark-making and painterly applications become astoundingly apparent. Wright’s work echoes the morbid tradition of ‘vanitas’ from the Dutch Old Masters of the 16th and 17th Century. Between beauty and decay, archetypal symbols l...

The gaze that looks ahead and then slowly wanders down or to the side, looking for traces and signs of a landscape, rather than the landscape itself. Van den Broek paints what others pay no attention to or simply overlook. Cracks, borders, shadows, lines, corners, and also bridges, trees, trucks, reflections. They are set up crisply, and stripped of their frills (or as van den Broek puts it: “Cut away the snoopy!”), which leaves them somewhere between figuration and abstraction. Are we in...

Spanning fifteen years of artistic practice, this monograph derives its title from a 1913 avant-garde Cubo-Futurist opera celebrating the demise of the sun. It confronts us with the speculative state of reality after the end of the world, a barren ontological wasteland in which artifacts have lost their utility. In his work, Xavier Mary is concerned with the dreams and nightmares of modernity, resulting from its inherently industrial nature. The sense of an impending apocalypse or total destr...

Elke Andreas Boon's art explores a duality of unruly fragility and reflection, tackling existential themes like religion, gender, and power structures. Her work, rooted in art tradition, undergoes subtle transformations, creating new contexts and combining brutal questioning with surreal humor. Boon’s oeuvre, spanning over twenty-five years, is noted for its relevance and aesthetic richness, addressing universal issues like identity and loneliness. S.M.A.K director Philippe Van Cauteren pra...

De artistieke praktijk van Willem Boel (°1983, Sint-Niklaas; woont en werkt in Gent) valt binnen het uitgebreide veld van

de beeldhouwkunst en bevat monumenten/structuren, kinetische sculpturen, gigantische rekwisieten en decors. Boel thematiseert de beeldhouwkunst als performance, als architectuur, als machinerie. De meeste werken uit zijn oeuvre circuleren door elkaar. Elk werk verbergt letterlijk de andere werken en zet ze voort, waardoor een voortdurende stroom van materiële elementen ...

“There is a lot of libido in the works of Tomislav Nikolic. An excess of desire which throbs and pulsates — palpitates — like some disco night atmosphere full of adrenaline and exaggerated lust. No!, you say. Nikolic’s works are exquisite, beautiful, serene, transcendent, mystical, spiritual. Yes, Ok they are, but they are also a bacchanal, carnival and a mardi gras; a late night in a mosh pit when things get loose and hyperventilated. They are all — every¬thing. Yet restrained. Co...

Johan Clarysse culls and paints images, unbiased, guided only by their potential for leaving a lasting impression on the viewer. To this end, imagery is assessed for its tension and contrasts, for its ability or inability to convey meaning, as well as for the presence of any unsettling enigmas. That is, drama without any restrictive narrative. Tension without any apparent curve. Clarysse’s work stands out because of its unique language, the use of soft, muted colours, its existential themes...