Fieldworks

“Fieldworks” is a group show with works by Marlise Breye, herman de vries and Bert De Geyter, that is based on observations in nature. Every artist investigates processes from nature through artistic interpretation, adaptation, structure,  isolation, et cetera.

Marlise Breye (°1998) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Kortrijk, Belgium. Born and raised in the same city, her work is deeply rooted in a lifelong fascination with the natural world. Her childhood curiosity evolved into a passion for science and astronomy, disciplines that continue to inform her artistic practice. In 2024, Marlise graduated with a master's degree in Fine Arts from LUCA School of Arts, where she earned the jury prize for her graduation project - a poetic exploration of clouds and their ephemeral nature.

Driven by humanity's timeless quest to understand its place in the cosmos, Marlise's artistic practice emerges the rigor of scientific inquiry with a sense of poetic wonder. Self-proclaimed a "pseudoscientist" she takes a research-based approach, designing experiments that isolate and recontextualize natural phenomena. Her installations create stark, minimalist environments that encourage intimate encounters between viewers and the physical world, rekindling a sense of awe for the universe's mysteries.

Her work invites reflection on the relationship between knowledge and wonder, challenging the ways scientific systems shape our perception of the world. To what extent does the pursuit of understanding obscure the beauty of the unknown? Through her practice, Marlise seeks to encapsulate the imperturbable forces of nature while questioning humanity's attempts to categorize and control them.

Bert De Geyter (°1984) lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. His art practice sprang from an identifiable moment of colossal loss that triggered an all-encompassing loving insight. Since then, the artist has grasped the essence, the wisdom of loss and letting go that the butterfly children brought. It is not escapism but embracing the brutal reality. It is the beauty of radical acceptance. Each work is a memento mori, celebrating the death that the Western world so anxiously hides from view, as an ode to life. Honoring the all-binding force, the universal source of impermanence and resurrection.

The “Mnemosyne” works are based on observations during the artist’s daily walk in the Bourgoyen, a natural park in Ghent, in the extremely dry summer of 2022. 

herman de vries (°1931) is a Dutch artist and co-founder of the Nul-movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In 1970, he moved to the Bavarian village of Eschenau (near Knetzgau) and from this time on, nature and Eastern ways of thinking became important elements in his work. Change and temporal arrangements as they prevail in nature are expressed, for instance, in works with fallen tree leaves or in a report of a survey of plants found on a fenced-off piece of meadow.

Since the 1980s, the emphasis in his work has been on the disturbed relationship between man and nature, which, according to de vries, threatens to cause the loss of an important source of knowledge. In books, he documents a large collection of herbs and crops, in works on paper he uses different kinds of earth as pigment and also exhibits grasses, fragrant rose petals and plants with hallucinatory effects. Besides a large number of artists' books, de vries also makes photographs, films and text works. This work in particular received special attention during the Venice Biennale in 2015, when herman was given the solo exhibition 'to be al ways to be' in the Dutch pavilion, curated by Colin Huizing and Cees de Boer. In 2025, herman de vries will have a big solo exhibition in the Stedelijk museum of Twente/Enschede.