JESSE WILLEMS

The Achilles series was born at a decisive moment in his life. After a breakup that led him to question his role as father, as partner, and as artist, Willems revisited fifteen years of photographic archives. There he found forgotten images, minimal details that, under a new light, became material to reconstruct his present. The title refers to Achilles not as a mythological hero but as a symbol of fragility: “He had his heel; I have my son Paolo and the future he represents,” Willems explains.

As the self-doubt began to fade and the sprouts of a new stage in his life started to grow, Willems’ work became more colorful, while still maintaining space for the contrast between light and shadow, and for those small details that, he hopes, will make the pieces last through time.

Some works stand as testimonies of this process of reinvention. In Ode to entropy, a simple gift ribbon and its shadow appear to dance and intertwine, finding a new order within chaos, echoing Willems’ search to balance chance and control. In Song of Achilles, circles that fragment and reunite evoke the family constellation he once formed with his partner and son, showing how the past can be reconnected to acquire a new meaning.

In Achilles, each clipping, each paper, and each reconstructed photograph reveals how Jesse Willems observes, reorganizes, and allows the pieces to speak for themselves, granting those who look, the time and space to uncover all their details and nuances.