We will start this new year with a group show with works on paper. The last few months we have shown two art fair presentations (Frieze London and Art Basel Miami Beach) at the former gallery space in the South district of Antwerp, but this will be the first exhibition at this location since 2012. The exhibition will include works by Michaël Borremans, N. Dash, Jan De Maesschalck, Philip Metten, Pietro Roccasalva, Hyun-Sook Song, Bart Stolle, Mircea Suciu, Luc Tuymans and Cristof Yvoré. Most of the works have been especially created for this exhibition.

The 'Commuter Works' by N. Dash (b. 1980) are made during the artist's daily commute from home to studio and elsewhere. While in transit, a piece of paper is repeatedly touched, creased and folded until the material's strength abates. After the paper has been extensively handled, it is then coated in graphite or pigment to 'seal' the touch. They are not so much works on paper as works with paper.

Philip Metten's (b. 1977) collages are getting increasingly spatial; he makes casts in papier-mâché which do not function as a frame but rather as an environment. The casts are created based on packing materials for utensils, in cardboard or styrofoam. The design of the packacking is very related to Philip Metten's own visual language. The papier-mâché is made from the snippets and shreds from the collages; in this way the paper is used as pure material in the cast while also being used in a pictorial way in the collage. He presents us with works that can be read as either mask or architectural model, urban topography or pixelated image.

Bart Stolle (b. 1974) is working on a complex body of work that mainly consists of paintings, drawings and animated films. In an age when everyone is being overwhelmed by sensory, and more specifically digital stimuli, Stolle opts for lentor. He analyses similarities between the logic of the computer and the human mind. Many of his works formally refer to twentieth century modernism as well as computer language. In his drawings he develops a less rigid formal language, often referring to natural processes and evolutions.

When clearing out his parental house, Jan De Maesschalck (b. 1958) discovered a stack of old newspaper cartoon sections he used to read as a child. These papers became the carriers for the 'Domesticated'-series in which the printed images, like tattoos, shimmer through a number of intriguing gazes. The title not only refers to the domestic origins of the series, but also hints at the social adaption of the human being, which still appears to be -even in this 21st century- a thin skin, through which the distress, caused and controlled by cruel and ruthless human power, shines like an eternal destiny.

_Study from Just Married Machine _by Pietro Roccasalva (b. 1970) belongs to a series of eponymous works which have sprung from his large-scale tableau vivant from 2011, Just Married Machine #1. This life-size installation was based on a still from La Ricotta by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975). Roccasalva translated a traditional 'nature morte' from the movie into an installation with real-life objects such as a boat, a rooster, a deflated hot air balloon and a couple dressed as newlyweds. The result was a scene that had the grandeur of a historical or mythological composition, but at the same time remained a vanitas. The work was translated into a series of paintings and drawings which in turn generated new works.

For the second time we present works on paper by Cristof Yvoré (1967–2013). Familiar motifs we recognie from his paintings such as façades, balloons and flowers are rendered in his characteristic style. After recent successful solo exhibitions at M Woods in Beijing, FRAC Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand and FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur in Marseille, a new solo show will be held at Kunstforum in Darmstadt in 2021.

Parallel to this show the exhibitions of Michaël Borremans and Patrick Van Caeckenbergh will be on view at the gallery in Borgerhout.

Press release courtesy Zeno X Gallery.