Gallery Valerie Traan from Antwerp represents designers from Belgium and abroad, questioning and redefining the borderlines between art, design and architecture. The exhibition Plates for Soulmates brings together six exciting Belgian designers and artists in four unique table installations that spring from the enjoyment of dining and being together.

Only during the opening: Sweet Clouds – an installation of cotton candy clouds and temporary shop with small objects by Lachaert & d’ Hanis

Valerie Traan Gallery
Architect and curator Veerle Wenes has always been interested in hybrid situations, in the blending of disciplines and in blurring the boundaries between art, design and architecture. She founded Valerie Traan gallery in 2010, shortly after curating the exhibition Le fabuleux destin du quotidian for Musée des Arts Contemporains in Grand Hornu.
In search of a place to encourage more genre-crossing activity while sharing creativity, Veerle and her husband merged a 19th century building with a 1970s house in the historic centre of Antwerp to create a combined home and art gallery. Gallery and house, both physically and psychologically connected, bring out the true community of art, design and architecture.
Valerie Traan is a place for objects and subjects, for things and themes, for functionality and subjectivity, for exhibiting and living – pushing the boundaries between art, design and architecture, between public and private.
More at: www.valerietraan.be

Designers of four table installations:
Lachaert & d’Hanis (Sofie Lachaert, Ghent, Belgium and Luc d’Hanis, Hamme, Belgium – both live and work in Tielrode, Belgium)
Sofie Lachaert and Luc d’Hanis have been working together for over 20 years. Their lives and work are inextricably intertwined. The concept of “shared” creativity runs like a thread through their work, from objects and furniture to installations where they simply ignore the boundaries between art, craft and design. Their subtle interventions give everyday objects new significance, some unexpected beauty. They have received numerous honors and awards in Belgium and abroad.

Muller Van Severen (Fien Muller, 1978, Lokeren and Hannes Van Severen, 1979, Ghent – live and work in Ghent, Belgium)
In 2010 vusial artists Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen were asked by the Valerie Traan gallery to embark on some design collaboration. They decided to cross the lines of their respective disciplines – photography and sculpture – and embark on a “furniture project”, which resulted in their first exhibition together, featuring furniture and lighting objects in May 2011 in the Valerie Traan gallery. Together they developed a series of unique design pieces, minimal in form and detailing but maximal in usability and use of materials. It was precisely these materials that served as the starting point for their investigations. Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen were nominated for Designer of the Year 2013 Award by the Design Museum in London.

Diane Steverlynck (1976, Belgija – works and lives in Brussels)
Diane Steverlynck studied textile design at La Cambre National School of Visual Art in Brussels after completing training in visual arts. In 2003 she launched her own studio in Brussels. Since then she develops objects and textile accessories for companies and for private interiors projects. She also works on self-initiated projects and productions, focusing on textiles, materials and structures and their influence on the use and identity of everyday objects. Behind each of her pieces is a story that involves material, people, usage and memory.

Benoît Van Innis (1960, Bruges, Belgium – works and lives in Brussels)
Benoît van Innis is a versatile artist, associated mainly with absurd drawings in newspapers and magazines like The New Yorker, with rhythmic abstraction in paintings, with monumental murals and with his interior design collaborations with renowed architecture practices like noAarchitecten and Robbrecht & Daem. He has also designed series of cement tiles for Carrelages du Marais as well as a collection of wallpapers.

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Opening

Sunday, 12 May,  11 a.m.

Info

T: 01 5484 270/274
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