PHILIPPE COGNÉE

Architecture, like life, is fragile: it rises, cracks, collapses, and returns to the earth from which it came. Cognée’s paintings have always been still lifes, meditations on the fragility of the world. At the Galerie Templon in Brussels, the artist presents three new ensembles that explore this reflection on the perishable beauty of things.

The first body of work, consisting of 32 charcoal and acrylic drawings on Arches paper, brings forth uncertain architectures, drawn from a visual collection but detached from any direct reference. Reduced to their essential structures, they morph into carcasses, grids and canvases—graphic variations where the harshness of charcoal clashes with the fluidity of acrylic. The scratched and lacerated surfaces create tragic landscapes, with a dramatic tension that counters any impressionistic lyricism.

In the series “Traverser la ville” (Crossing the City), executed in oil on wood, Cognée literally attacks the material. With blows from blunt tools, he brings forth hieroglyphic, almost abstract images, where architecture is reduced to silhouettes, ghosts, shrouds.

Finally, a series of encaustic paintings perpetuates the artist’s fascination with vibrant blurring and pigment sparkles. These works, both luminous and melancholic, celebrate the fragile splendor of reality and elevate architecture to the status of memento mori, a reminder of the passing of time and the impermanence of bodies.