From Nature to the City

The starting point is “Mountain View” by Lio Meekers. In this photograph, where sections have been carefully obscured with gold paint, only a small glimpse of a snow-covered mountain landscape and a few branches of a coniferous tree remain visible. This fragmented view raises questions: what remains of nature when large parts are erased? Meekers’ work seems to reference a landscape that has become inaccessible, a nature altered by our attempts to control or capture it.

Opposing Meekers’ fleeting glimpse of nature are the works of the other artists. These pieces all emerged from walks through the city. As contemporary flâneurs, the artists observe the spaces around them. Like spectators, they wander through the hustle and bustle of modern life, finding beauty in the everyday moments of urban existence.

Through Kim Kroes’ line paintings, we transition from nature to the city. The titles of her works reference a specific time and place, yet the paintings themselves depict only color. Thickly applied acrylic paint forms lines that blend into a gradient.
As she walks through the city, Kim Kroes directs her gaze upwards. She then paints the sky as she has observed it in particular locations at specific moments in time. These fragments of sky become instances of nature within an urban setting, pockets of breathing space amid the chaos.

Liam Gruwe often shifts the focus to the overlooked. The two works shown here zoom in on details of building façades, revealing textures and patterns. By isolating these elements, Gruwe highlights the hidden beauty within the urban fabric. The close-up perspective transforms the façade into an almost abstract composition, where lines, surfaces, and materials lose their original context and become something new. His work reminds us that the city is not just a vast, imposing structure but a collection of small, intimate moments waiting to be seen.

Anna Maria Cnop presents a triptych of photographs. Each image captures the top of a skyscraper, viewed from a different position. Through subtle shifts in her vantage point, Cnop emphasizes the sculptural nature of the building. The structure appears to hover between architectural precision and monumental abstraction. A symbol of human dominance over the city, the skyscraper is transformed by Cnop into a form that almost seems to detach from its surroundings.

Zanne Jeghers presents three cityscapes—photographs of architectural elements or urban landscapes, digitally layered with abstract paintings. These painted layers distort reality, playing with visibility and invisibility, concealing what was once clear. The result is a series of hybrid images where city and abstraction merge, as if Jeghers is attempting to capture her impressions of the city during her walks—only to let them fade again.

“From Nature to the City” is a meeting between two approaches: nature as a lost, fragmented reality and the city as a dynamic, layered environment. The exhibition invites us to pause and reconsider our relationship with both worlds—the natural and the urban—and to reflect on how we perceive, understand, and reconstruct them.

Curator: Ine Vlassaks
Location: L’Avenirsite Lier
Duration of the exhibition: 29/09/2019

Exhibited works:

Liam Gruwe
Façade detail #1, 2019
Acrylics on hardboard
61 x 61 cm

Façade detail #2, 2019
Acrylics on hardboard
41 x 61 cm

Kim Kroes
Schijnpoort 20190918 19:58, 2019
Acrylics on hardboard
61 x 40,7 cm

Aarschot 20190723 22:11, 2019
Acrylics on hardboard
61 x 61 cm

Le Havre 20180806 21:32, 2019
Acrylics on paper mounted on foamboard

Zanne Jeghers
Trump Tower (landscape), 2019
Digital photo-painting
Variable size (exhibition: 29x41cm)

Trump Tower (portrait), 2019
Digital photo-painting
Variable size (exhibition: 41x29cm)

Overhead Line, 2019
Digital photo-painting
Variable size (exhibition: 29x41cm)

Anna Maria Cnop
Blue Condominium, 2019
Tryptich, photograph on matte paper, mounted on mdf

Lio Meekers
Mountain View, 2019
Acrylics on photograph, mounted on mdf
24,9 x 16,6 x 1,9 cm (photo 10x15cm)