Lore Stessel is fascinated by the beauty of daily routines, small gestures, and the power of movement, in which the body as a subject occupies a fundamental place. Her artistic work is often the result of an encounter between photographer and dancer(s), where a wordless dialogue takes place. She focuses on body memory and how every event or movement communicates stored, often unconscious, memories.
With her camera, she subtly captures small fragments of these stories that cannot be expressed in words. She seizes the intensity of the past through body movements, light, and the impactful surrounding elements. She achieves this by seeking out brief, intense encounters in unfamiliar places, often driven by a love for the rawness as well as the silence of nature.
The result is memory captured within the photographic image. She moves at the intersection of photography and painting. By applying analog printing techniques to canvas, she accords a special place to the physical creation process, embracing "chance" and the "unforeseen" here as well.
For her first solo exhibition in a Belgian cultural center, Lore Stessel consciously chooses to place the concept of the encounter at the center and to invite "companions on the road." These are artists with whom she shares a view on life and a passion for dance, movement, texture, abstract expression, and much more.
Frank Gizycki, Ilse van Roy, and Frederic Geurts engage in dialogue with Lore Stessel and her work through small and larger interventions. Prior to this, there were moments of encounter and creation where Frank, Ilse, and Lore sought to deepen and collectively understand the processes that fascinate them all. Ilse designed a knitted costume; Frank wears and moves within it, simultaneously embracing and exploring the "transitional objects" that Lore and Ilse offer as a co-creation for the dance. The result of these movements unfolds in a "common playground" where elements from all of them are revealed to the viewer like an archive.
The exhibition is composed of images Lore Stessel created of the process behind Frank Gizycki's new solo performance and the tactile form of Ilse van Roy's costume. Ilse's hands on her knitting machine dance like the woven thread that brings everything together. Frederic Geurts adds movement with a mobile and a single leaf that you can cause to flutter simply by your presence.
Everything is in motion, and we move one another: I have seen people made of dreams.
