Face It

Artist list

Nevin Arig, Isabelle Azaïs, Laila Costa, Corneel De Schampelaere, Julie Decubber, Åsa Elmstam, Lore Langendries, Oles Tsura, Aline Vandeplas, Karen Vanmol, Ingrid Weissgerber

Karen Vanmol (B)
AKA #ISeeFaces
Paradolia takes place in the psyche and makes us see familiar things in random shapes. Our brains are so eager to recognize patterns and correlations they see them where there are none. Just like children see a castle in the sky. Symmetry is an important aspect in that process. Our brain strives for perfection in this symmetry but that perfection soon gets boring. An imperfection in the symmetry gives tension to the image and makes it interesting again.

In this work, she looks for tension by disturbing perfect symmetry, by pushing slightly on one side of the composition or by relocating or removing fragments. She chooses to do her work by hand and not make it absolutely symmetrical by using computer-controlled programs.
The title 'AKA #ISeeFaces' refers to the many reports of sightings in this regard.


Ingrid Weissgerber (NL) 
Ingrid Weissgerber trained in theatre in Florence, Italy and worked as an actress for many years. After the death of her father, who worked as a goldsmith, she polished his tools and took a goldsmith course in Amsterdam. After a few years, she exchanged gold and silver for paper as a material for making jewellery. A papersmith is born.

The mask brooches were created from her love for theater. Masks conceal or enhance a character's hidden aspects. For the exhibition "Face it," Ingrid designed a special edition of characterful brooches, some of which can be worn on both sides but all with a special back.

Her fascination with how little information the brain needs to see something in everyday objects, clouds, trees, and cracks in the wallpaper turns out to have a name: Pareidolia. Her crinkly heads have their origins in that. The faces are already hidden in the sheet of paper: she finds them and all she has to do is cut them out, as it were.


Isabelle Azaïs (FR - B) 
Isabelle Azaïs' work is organic. She uses plastic foil packaging, helium balloons, golden survival blankets,… to evoke mutated people in which a dystopian microscopic life is organized. Isabelle Azaïs' jewelry speaks about our body, which is ingesting more and more microparticles of plastic. It is a poetic representation of the plastic human being in the making.


Laila Costa (AU/B)
Laila Marie Costa is a multidisciplinary who works in jewellery, assemblage, collage, performance, installation, and sound. She sporadically produces zines, curates exhibitions and makes music. 


Nevin Arig (T - B) 
This is not a selfie
Taking a selfie is an instinctive, almost animalistic act. We give in to a deep urge to assert ourselves and be seen. The selfie becomes a modern ritual of display, where everyone showcases their beauty, strength, or success like a peacock flaunting its feathers. Behind the screen, we don a shimmering mask, an idealized version of ourselves adorned with glitter and perfection.
We feed on the gaze of others, seeking to prove our worth and popularity through likes and comments. This quest for validation turns into a competition, a way to measure our place in the social hierarchy. The selfie, far from being trivial, reveals our primal need for recognition, for visual dominance in a world where image is king.


Åsa Elmstam (SE) 
A group of brooches made of recycled silver and coal. They might smear you since that’s what coal, oil and gas do. Our persistent use of fossil fuels has put us in the 6th mass extinction.
When burned, coal releases substances harmful to the environment and to our health. These include heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particles, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and volatile organic substances.

These coal pieces are from a beach in Sweden at Öland's southeastern coast. They probably come from one of three ships that were sunk by mines during World War II because there is no natural coal on this site.
The coal pieces are roughly the same shape as when they were found, with some manipulation through engravings.


Aline Vandeplas (B)
As a galerist and teacher she sees the importance of art (education) to express ourselves. She does not have a finished jewel but encourages people to play with disposable materials.


Lore Langendries (B)
The world is becoming increasingly dominated by technology and digital, virtual images, which ensure an increasing separation from the emotional and physical aspects of artefacts. Due to the internet, we are all visually and virtually connected, but not physically. Touch or tactile perception is overshadowed by the visual culture in which we live, but still, those visual imagery makes touch and feel the hungriest senses of postmodernity.
Lore Langendries’ work balances the unique and the serial with a particular focus on the tactile and physical artefacts, the behaviour of natural animal material in combination with digital technology and her own intuitive role as a maker. Central to her work is the use of geometrical forms showing the essence and beauty of animal hides in their most elementary forms. The material is used as an active agent in the design and making process, handling the material as subject and matter.


Julie Decubber (FR)
She cuts, melts, or assembles pieces to highlight what is precious in the ordinary, applying techniques of the jeweller, stonecutter, and potter to generate elegant and unexpected combinations. She turns ordinary objects into unique jewels to tell people’s stories and explore the theme of memory.


Corneel De Schampelaere (B)
The Blue Moon series of brooches are the product of a messy workspace and a spontaneous bout of inspiration. The ingredients for a whole new material ended up together, begging to be formed into something new, something otherworldly. For the colour, high-quality pigments were used based on Yves Klein’s paint. Because of this, the brooches catch the eye like no other.

The Cydonia Quartet is a special edition that, when looked at more closely, presents a happier image within its mysterious celestial landscape. The name “Cydonia” refers to a region of Mars that famously contains what seems like a human face looking back at us. The brooches play upon the human urge to see our own faces everywhere, even on alien planets, whether red or blue. In doing so, they allow you to carry a little joy along wherever you go.


Oles Tsura (UA - D)
He considers his jewellery like a lure that tricks and seduces, similar to the situation in angling where the fish encounters the bait. He was inspired by the idea of curiosity because it is part of the human condition. Each of his works is a metaphorical reflection based on these ideas. Each of them tells small situations whose aim is to evoke stories in the viewer's memory. These jewellery are inspired by local candy faces made of gemstones that people want to touch, carry them and almost eat them.


Opening Reception Sunday October 6, 2024 from 14h to 17h
Opening hours: Thursday & Friday 1.30pm - 6pm. Saturday 11.30am - 5.00pm.