Art for Christmas

Galerie Eurasia, Brussels, 1 December 2004 – 5 January 2005

Artists displayed:

Serzhan Bashirov
Marat Bekeev
Amina Boujeddaine
Corinna O’Brien
Tania Bružs
Nazife Can
Saule Dusembina
Askar Esdauletov
Yvon Matagne
Els Mommaerts
Andrei Noda
Anna Raigorodskaya
Saule Suleimenova
Ilse Selhorst
Arlette Vermeiren
Claude van Doosselaere
Russell West

Art for Christmas brings together 17 artists from different countries who all
subscribe to the key idea of Galerie Eurasia of combining traditional
craftsmanship with a search for interesting contemporary ways of artistic
expression. In this Christmas exhibition, jewelry, textiles and ceramics are
put on display together with contemporary painting, sculpture and
installations.

The exhibition space is dominated by an installation by Arlette Vermeiren
(Belgium), an artist with wide international recognition in the area of textile
design. The installations of Arlette Vermeiren use everyday materials –
such as wrapping paper for confetti, shoes, and other everyday objects –
to create installations of often impressive scale that convey impressions of
luminosity, ascension and purity. The result is a synthesis of profane and
sacred: out materials of everyday life, structures embodying the
elementary notions of holy and immaterial are created. This work to
transform profane into sacred is anchored on a mastery of texture and
structure. In 1968-99, Arlette Vermeiren worked as Professor at the
Academie des Beaux-Arts de Tournai (Belgium) and from 1998, she has
acted as the Artistic Director of the Textile Department of the Centre de
Recherche de la Fondation de la Tapisserie de Tournai. Her works have
been on display in museums of contemporary art around the world.

In a resembling manner, the work of Russell West (United Kingdom) is also
grounded on a thorough study of texture, structure and the capacities of
everyday materials to serve the purpose of artistic expression. In the works
on display at the Art for Christmas exhibition, Russell West uses wire and
oil as his basic materials, creating a rich and colourful texture. In a similar
manner as Arlette Vermeiren, he uses everyday materials in quest for
expression for fundamental themes. However, unlike that of Arlette
Vermeiren, the work of Russell West is not primarily focused on the themes
of purity and the sacred. Instead, his objective is to create a visual
expression for the controversies of urban life in a global community. Living
and working in London at the moment, he has worked several years in
different cities of East Asia. This experience has given him a keen sense of
cultural dissimilarities as well as also of the convergence of horizons
between East and West in the contemporary world.

The new wave painters from Kazakhstan – Marat Bekeev, Saule
Dusembina,  Askar Esdauletov, Andrei Noda and Saule Suleimenova –
present in the Art for Christmas exhibition also strive towards a synthesis
of cultures and the merging of horizons between East and West. In the
painting of these artists, three different traditions come together: the rich
folk tradition of the Central Asian countries, the Soviet school of painting
emphasising discipline and craftsmanship, and the creative force of such
western painters as de Kooning and Dubuffet, admired widely among the
younger generation of painters in the former Soviet Union. Result of this
synthesis are an uncompromising mastery of technique, bold use of colour
and a Chagallesque play with traditional motives in modern abstract
painting. In addition, an ironic and well-tempered reflection on the subject
of the painting as well as on the artist himself or herself is nearly always
present.

Contemporary Western European painting is represented by Corinna
O’Brien (Belgium), Tania Bruzs (France), Ilse Selhorst (Belgium) and
Maceo Valles (Belgium). In her paintings with acrylic on canvas, Corinna O’
Brien plays in a post-modern fashion with themes and impressions derived
from Ottoman Turkey. The pictures of Tania Bruzs are powerful in their
simplicity and representation of basic symbols, paying homage to the
tradition of folk art in the Baltic countries and Poland. Ilse Selhorst is a fine
representative of the Belgian tradition of abstract expressionism. The
juxtaposition of nature and technology, the natural and the artificial, is the
leitmotiv of the works of Maceo Valles, finding its expression in meticulously
crafted pop art images.

The contemporary art on display is complemented by works of applied art.
Two renowned jewellers from the former Soviet Union, Serzhan Bashirov
(Kazakhstan) and Anna Raigorodskaya (Russia) present their works at the
Art for Christmas exhibition. In his jewellery in silver and bronze, Serzhan
Bashirov, Professor of Applied Arts at the State University of Almaty,
searches for modern expression for the archetypical symbols common in
the folk art of ancient Central Asian peoples. While Bashirov’s work reflects
a quest for simplicity and elementary forms, Anna Raigorodskaya, by
contrast, seeks to build exquisite miniature worlds in silver. Not seldom,
these minute fantasy worlds derive their inspiration in pop culture, science
fiction, and the flourishing tradition of underground culture in the artist’s
home town St. Petersburg. The surrealistic miniature world of
Raigorodskaya is, however, firmly rooted in the Russian tradition of
craftsmanship: she has been several times awarded the prize of the
famous St. Petersburg-based Fabergé Foundation, and among other
collections, her works are in the permanent collection of the Hermitage
Museum in St. Petersburg.

Sculptures by Yvon Matagne (Belgium) are also on display in the Art for
Christmas exhibition. The ceramic sculptures of Matagne are
simultaneously tranquil and sensual, finding their motives from the nature.
In addition, traditional textile art from Northern India and Congo is
exhibited, creating a backdrop to support the interplay between traditions
of East and West as well as between contemporary painting and applied
arts.