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The Art World in Focus
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Cathy Wilkes Xavier Hufkens 13 February–12 April 2025 Van Eyck
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Press Release

Cathy Wilkes presents a new series of paintings, marking her first exhibitionin Brussels to focus almost exclusively on two-dimensional work. Wilkes’paintings, sculpture, and poetic writing sit precariously on the edge of legibility.The artist describes aspects of her work as a mediation; the work feels humaneand commensurate with a level of intense introspective concentration. Wilkeshas referred to the presence and proximity of the dead in her work, as well asthe influence of her children and her own childhood in Northern Ireland.

In relation to the sculptures, How It Was and I can hear the tick of your watch,Wilkes refers to reincarnation. These works, like ‘the play where nothinghappens’, show us a place of waiting or a moment after departure. Her notesread: “We called in at a farm in Crossnacreevy. We had tea in mugs thatweren’t too clean. I looked at the chairs, thinking if maybe Joseph or Jesusmight have made them. Without transmigration, we would all be thin andinsubstantial, like ghosts, I thought.”

Combining celestial sparsity with the textures and colours of elegiac landscape,her paintings express loss and the repose of souls. While their titles—Rivulet,Hillside with Thorn Bushes, Dormition of Mary, and Harbour in Al Sham—implya poetic biblical illumination, they remain hypostatic and delicately iterativein themselves. Wilkes finds a correlative to the interior relationships of

her installations in their careful negotiations of space and placement on thepainted surface.

In these new paintings, the soft, blurred hues of earlier works give way to analmost unprecedented sparseness. Working with pigment and gum arabicon silk and linen, the fabric, its threads and weave, take on a more activecompositional and symbolic role. Collaged shapes and isolated painted gestures,stars and tiny swatches of cloth engage in a formal and symbolic interplay.

In Leaving and Coming Back, for example, the circles of paper hover betweensurface and substrate; they are like bandages or patches covering wounds.

“The paintings are made and repeated until they are finished. After a whileI know what should be there; I start again over and over. I can feel the speedof each action, which is fast and has no real duration—just the briefest momentcompared to long periods of waiting and looking. It doesn’t feel like production;production is too aggressive—it feels like continuous preparation, and theneventually recognition when I see it.”

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About the Artist

Born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Cathy Wilkes trained at Glasgow School of Art and is part of the generation of artists who emerged in the mid-1990s. Wilkes is primarily known for her large-scale installations of seemingly disparate objects, many of which are distressed, damaged, altered or adapted.

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Also Exhibiting at Xavier Hufkens

All Exhibitions
Walter Swennen
WALTER SWENNEN errata Xavier Hufkens 4 June–25 July 2026 Van Eyck
Nicolas Party
NICOLAS PARTY Toile d’araignée Xavier Hufkens 21 May–25 July 2026 St-Georges
Joan Semmel
JOAN SEMMEL Continuities Xavier Hufkens 22 April–27 June 2026 Rivoli
About the Gallery
Xavier Hufkens is one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art. Located in Brussels, the gallery maintains a diverse exhibition programme with solo exhibitions of the gallery artists as well as group exhibitions and special projects. The gallery deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation-based work.

The origins of the gallery date back to 1987, when Xavier Hufkens opened a gallery space in an un-refurbished warehouse in the neighbourhood of the South Station (Midi) in Brussels. During the early years, the focus of the gallery was upon mid-career and emerging artists and the gallery is known for having introduced some of the most influential contemporary artists to Brussels at a time when they were still relatively unknown. British sculptor Antony Gormley, who is still affiliated with the gallery, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Rosemarie Trockel all showed in Belgium for the first time with Xavier Hufkens (Gormley in 1987; Gonzalez-Torres in 1991 and Trockel in 1993).

In 1992, the gallery moved to a 19th-century townhouse at 6 rue Saint-Georges, close to the Avenue Louise. Completely renovated by Belgian architects Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Marie-José Van Hee, the house quickly gained a reputation for being not just one of the most beautiful contemporary art spaces in the Belgian capital, but also one of the most interesting. The expanded exhibition programme coincided with the additional representation of a number of established artists from Belgium and abroad, including Richard Artschwager, Thierry De Cordier and Jan Vercruysse. In 1997, Hufkens expanded the gallery further by annexing the adjacent building and a number of new artists joined the gallery, including Louise Bourgeois, Roni Horn and Thomas Houseago.

A second space in the same street, at 107 rue Saint-Georges, opened in spring 2013. Located in the Galerie Rivoli, a mixed-use commercial development from the 1970s, the new gallery space was designed by Swiss architect Harry Gugger, who was previously in partnership with Herzog and De Meuron. Slegten & Toegemann, Brussels, managed the project.

An eclectic but very clear vision underpins all of the gallery’s activities: ‘The definition of the gallery was established from the start. The common thread, then and now, is quality over and above everything else, which I find more intellectually challenging than a forced definition. From the early days I juxtaposed established artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto with someone like Felix Gonzalez-Torres when he was totally unknown. Today I still mix my work: I have no problem showing Malcolm Morley … alongside Robert Ryman, or Willem de Kooning.’ [Xavier Hufkens in The Art Newspaper, Issue 220, January 2011, published online: 20 January 2011]

Xavier Hufkens represents some thirty artists from different generations. He was part of the six-member selection committee for Art Basel during seven years and also participates in up to five international Arts Fairs annually. The gallery has partnerships with the estates of Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe and Alice Neel.
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Address
44 rue Van Eyck
Van Eyckstraat
Brussels
Belgium
Opening Hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
(1)
Brussels 44 rue Van Eyck, Van Eyckstraat
Xavier Hufkens contemporary art gallery in Van Eyck Brussels Belgium
Xavier Hufkens
44 rue Van Eyck, Van Eyckstraat, Brussels, Belgium
+32 026 396 730
http://www.xavierhufkens.com

Opening hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
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