On a second floor hidden behind a grey facade on the Vlaamsesteenweg/rue de Flandre you find yourself tumbling into a Lewis Carroll-style rabbit hole. The urban fade to grey comes to a halt when the door into Léopoldine Roux’s studio opens. Framed in the hall are words you can hardly ignore as you enter: “La vie en rose”. The sleeves of vinyl records by Deep Purple, the Rolling Stones, and Adamo, among others, stored in low cases against the wall, are overwhelmed by splashes of colour, while old, yellowing black-and-white postcards undergo flowery metamorphoses.
Studio visit: Léopoldine Roux
(© Heleen Rodiers)
The space, which is painted entirely in white (including its wooden floor), is the setting for a subtle and playful explosion of colours and forms. Polyurethane oozes from every nook and cranny, like little monsters that, rather than isolating the space, overrun it, almost uncontrollably making their own way and thereby opening the space up to another world. Down the rabbit hole, a panorama unfolds that will lodge itself in your head and bump merrily against its sides. “The city is a kind of playground,” says Roux (born in 1979). “My studio is an offshoot of what goes on outside, of the energy that prevails there.” Originally from France, when she came to Brussels over ten years ago, she didn’t intend to move here permanently to live. But she became attached to the city and to the studio she has now occupied for two years, after living there for five. “When the Sint-Katelijneplein/place Sainte-Catherine lies under a blanket of snow on a Sunday, you almost expect to meet a figure out of a Bruegel painting. There is a soul, a spirit, a truly special air in the city’s historic centre. It is full of life here: you’re in a little air-bubble. Yes, the city inspires me! À fond! As an artist I have developed a lot since moving to Brussels. It feels like a second life.”
The space, which is painted entirely in white (including its wooden floor), is the setting for a subtle and playful explosion of colours and forms. Polyurethane oozes from every nook and cranny, like little monsters that, rather than isolating the space, overrun it, almost uncontrollably making their own way and thereby opening the space up to another world. Down the rabbit hole, a panorama unfolds that will lodge itself in your head and bump merrily against its sides. “The city is a kind of playground,” says Roux (born in 1979). “My studio is an offshoot of what goes on outside, of the energy that prevails there.” Originally from France, when she came to Brussels over ten years ago, she didn’t intend to move here permanently to live. But she became attached to the city and to the studio she has now occupied for two years, after living there for five. “When the Sint-Katelijneplein/place Sainte-Catherine lies under a blanket of snow on a Sunday, you almost expect to meet a figure out of a Bruegel painting. There is a soul, a spirit, a truly special air in the city’s historic centre. It is full of life here: you’re in a little air-bubble. Yes, the city inspires me! À fond! As an artist I have developed a lot since moving to Brussels. It feels like a second life.”
(© Heleen Rodiers)
Léopoldine Roux’s work is not easy to categorise. You are more likely to feel instinctively an immediate bond with its freedom, its lust for life, and its joy. At one moment it is as if someone has opened a can of nostalgia (from which flow Overflow and The Big Escape) and you find yourself caught up in (sometimes literally) sweet memories of childhood; at another, temptation and desire predominate. Roux hesitates occasionally when we ask about her work, as if reluctant to get in the way of what it has to say through the viewer’s eyes. “I like not being labelled. It’s all so subjective, after all. Even for an artist it is sometimes difficult to explain what exactly a work means. It is like trying to explain to a child what a lemon tastes like… You have to try it! Moreover, I am close to the precepts of minimalism: what you see is what there is.” Roux’s works suggest movement; they seem to be seeking their way, as if they have a will of their own. “That is maybe partly down to the material I use. Working with polyurethane means working with chance: it shapes itself. What you get then is something intangible, something fleeting… It has a life of its own and I do like that. At a particular moment you let it go, like a child. I give birth and then I let it live. My medium is not painting, but colour. And it is really more than a medium for me: it is an experience, something you give life to.”
Léopoldine Roux frequently transforms public space into a wonderland. She created Rose Fountains for Kortrijk, transformed a golf course in Namur into Candy Land, and set Mister Iceberg bobbing around in the moat of the Château de Jehay in Amay. Her Street Gumming action produces an extreme form of trail: In Vorst/Forest some 1,500 pieces of chewing gum were painted pink. “I actually do that all around the world! [laughs] It’s so easy, all you need is nail polish. I have done it in Tokyo, in Moscow. Sometimes I just do one, like on Tiananmen Square… I was too scared. [laughs] Street art is important to me. My studio is fun, it’s where I’m at home, but adding some colour to the street is just as necessary. It’s like creating little miracles in everyday life.” Through the looking glass of our eyes, anyway. Borough : City of Brussels
Exhibitions : > 29/3, "Color Suicides", //gaggarin//, Brussels (Death by colour! The portraits of Léopoldine Roux's artistic icons, influences, points of reference, and overlaps are decapitated by a murderous colour); > 5/5, "Colorific", École des Arts, Braine L'Alleud (Léopoldine Roux exhibits her largest monochrome ever: Drive in Pink)
info: www.leopoldineroux.com
Léopoldine Roux’s work is not easy to categorise. You are more likely to feel instinctively an immediate bond with its freedom, its lust for life, and its joy. At one moment it is as if someone has opened a can of nostalgia (from which flow Overflow and The Big Escape) and you find yourself caught up in (sometimes literally) sweet memories of childhood; at another, temptation and desire predominate. Roux hesitates occasionally when we ask about her work, as if reluctant to get in the way of what it has to say through the viewer’s eyes. “I like not being labelled. It’s all so subjective, after all. Even for an artist it is sometimes difficult to explain what exactly a work means. It is like trying to explain to a child what a lemon tastes like… You have to try it! Moreover, I am close to the precepts of minimalism: what you see is what there is.” Roux’s works suggest movement; they seem to be seeking their way, as if they have a will of their own. “That is maybe partly down to the material I use. Working with polyurethane means working with chance: it shapes itself. What you get then is something intangible, something fleeting… It has a life of its own and I do like that. At a particular moment you let it go, like a child. I give birth and then I let it live. My medium is not painting, but colour. And it is really more than a medium for me: it is an experience, something you give life to.”
Léopoldine Roux frequently transforms public space into a wonderland. She created Rose Fountains for Kortrijk, transformed a golf course in Namur into Candy Land, and set Mister Iceberg bobbing around in the moat of the Château de Jehay in Amay. Her Street Gumming action produces an extreme form of trail: In Vorst/Forest some 1,500 pieces of chewing gum were painted pink. “I actually do that all around the world! [laughs] It’s so easy, all you need is nail polish. I have done it in Tokyo, in Moscow. Sometimes I just do one, like on Tiananmen Square… I was too scared. [laughs] Street art is important to me. My studio is fun, it’s where I’m at home, but adding some colour to the street is just as necessary. It’s like creating little miracles in everyday life.” Through the looking glass of our eyes, anyway. Borough : City of Brussels
Exhibitions : > 29/3, "Color Suicides", //gaggarin//, Brussels (Death by colour! The portraits of Léopoldine Roux's artistic icons, influences, points of reference, and overlaps are decapitated by a murderous colour); > 5/5, "Colorific", École des Arts, Braine L'Alleud (Léopoldine Roux exhibits her largest monochrome ever: Drive in Pink)
info: www.leopoldineroux.com
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