BELGIAN WOMEN: POST-WAR BELIGAN ABSTRACT PAINTING

Group show featuring:

From the silent abstraction of the astral rythmes of Berthe Dubail, to the musical inventivity of Francine Holley, from the constructivist subtlety of Antonia Lambelé, to the gestural lyricism of Gisèle Van Lange, to reach the minimalist radicalness of Marthe Wéry, this exhibition is a five-step waltz in the Belgian female abstract post-war painting.

Five women, five temperaments who offer an insight, to a carefully chosen selection of artworks directly issued from their studios, five singular universes sometimes diametrically opposed, all, however, linked by a common vision of a pictorial dismissing of the figuration.

Together they form a star with 5 points, representing five opposite directions of abstraction, complementary and distinct at the same time. This five-pointed star (which is also the structure of the rose-hip flower or commonly known as dog rose) is an evocation of Femininity, that sacred feminine carrying all fruition of nature, which reflects the spirit of the exhibition.
All five experimented the exigency of their engagements until rupture, their intuitions went to the extremity of their personnel explorations of the abstraction, « Deep inside », looking to escaping the figurative constraints, to put reality into play in crazy races towards their inner depths, showing everything, with generosity, expression made out of strength, pride and determination.

These women, free, brave and sincere, gave even more of themselves than any other male artist of their time... They had to prove, through quality and rigor of their creation, that they were worthy of recognition, sacrificing more of this intimate and incandescent part, that every artist needs to concede, dying himself, to be reborn in one’s work.

This is the whole point of the exhibition, of this panel of women- artists, born in and with modernity, constructing it in real time, affirming themselves in their feminine artistic individuality which was accompanied at their start, an ascending feminism...