On the Threshold of Time | The Belgo Report

Kerozene-Swartele

If you’re up for a bit of intellectual gymnastics, make sure to check out Amy SwartelÃ©‘s exhibit Liminal, currently on show at Galerie KÃ©rozÃ¨ne. A feast for the eyes and the brain, Swartele investigates our experience of “time” and “place” and our perceptions of the past and future. The artist feels herself past the linear, Newtonian concept of time and visualizes more “relative” concepts such as the Many Worlds Interpretation proposed by physicist Hugh Everett. Swartele’s large canvases depict transparent, overlapping moments in time, distorted faces pulled by sources of unseen gravity, a tumble down the rabbit hole. Despite the Å“uvre’s overall dark key, the artist injects streams of pure, vibrant colour making the works glow from within. The super-glossy varnish turns the paintings into slices of shiny glass, as though the artist had painted on water. Swartele’s work is at once nightmarish and mesmerizing.