Lisse Declercq: I Don't Shine if You Don't Shine

German-born, belgian artist Lisse Declercq is known for the visual pleasure within her artistic practice and for the specific methods in which she works. Declercq elaborated her painting techniques and foundations by watching makeup tutorials on Youtube. She bends this language to stage social selfies, an awareness of a certain reality, and its effects on ways of looking. In this culture of the copy, this millennial painter moves between fantasy and reality while calling into question authenticity. Declercq questions the longing for perfection, the copy-paste Instagram/ media aesthetics as an impossible, endless battle of unwillingly and unknowingly playing a part in a “reality show” in a virtual media reality.

VETA by Fer Francés is pleased to present her first solo exhibition in Spain in which Lisse Declercq presents a new series of figurative paintings . In this diverse installation, the artist explores the impact of color, gesture, and form across a range of motifs, some of which are familiar while others represent a new thematic departure. The paintings created for I Don’t Shine if You Don’t Shine revisit a recurrent thread in Lisse Declercq’s work - the language of an illusory world - but amplified in terms of scale and energy (desire). Declercq has long been fascinated by the “coulisse” nature of her paintings: that such works hold double meanings; that interpretation relies on an empathetic way of interaction, looking at and through the construction of appearances. With no predefined rule for creating such images, the path lies open for boundless experimentation. And it is within this exploratory field that Declercq creates a reflective space for both herself, her subjects, and the viewer. In a certain sense, her figurative paintings are akin to the coulisse (you can’t spell “Lisse” without coulisse): the threshold between reality and theatricality, the moment of the sublime where order meets chaos, the known meets the unknown. Flowing between figuration’s recognizable forms derived from life, and the continuity of the painting tradition, her new paintings openly celebrate fandom (a fan, fanatic): a fan of creating, making, being, and looking at art.

The works on linen illustrate a familiar range of subjects from Declercq’s practice, all of which function as catalysts for her meticulous investigations into color, aesthetics, and the mechanics of rendering shine. Motifs include masks, flowing hair, sparkles, tears, bubbles, curtains, ruffles, water, reflections, diamonds, and pearls. In I Don’t Shine if You Don’t Shine, Declercq brings different motifs into a mutual dialogue, leading us to consider the relationships between repetition, representation, and association. Making their debut on a large scale are Pearly Shell which mirrors Máscara with their ethereal veils and direct gazes: cool and polished, yet vulnerable in exposing a beauty routine (or protection? Self-defense?). All In, Glamour et L'amour, and Direction to Perfection capture the movement of extreme states, enveloping the subjects. In these works, Declercq focuses on emotive states: ripples of water enveloping lovers; the swooshing gown ruffles of a starry-eyed subject (blinded by love and glamor, before the coulisse of a curtain, exposing the canvas’ linen); and waves of hair from a rearing horse and its falling rider, echoing Caravaggio’s Conversion on the way to Damascus. The delicate layers of oil on linen - both watery and airy - are not only innovative in technique (make-up tutorials from social media), but also visually intriguing: the oil paint behaves like a beauty serum: drawing attention to the surface underneath (the fine grain of linen), while also behaving as a coulisse, a floating world of illusion.

In bringing these paintings together in I Don’t Shine if You Don’t Shine, Declercq grants the viewer an insight into the nature of her practice, the wellspring of ideas that energizes her art, and on a more universal level, the zeitgeist of the current generation who are creating new values, fashion, and styles: teamwork, networking, social mmm! The title is telling in this respect, which could just as easily allude to the images as being the reflection of the artist’s mind as to the aperture through which one glimpses another reality.