Billie Mertens | Chardons, 2020

Drypoint

31 x 42 cm

Edition of 15

Framed

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Billie Mertens work is about motif, in the artistic sense (As an aesthetic form) faced with a motive of intellectual nature (the reason to act). The pattern/reason that is formed in inner life, which extends to the domestic and physical environment and, by extension, to the external and ecological environment. By circumventing appearances and playing on poetic oppositions, BM's images express illusory nature, the vanity of things and beings, and the finitude of the human condition in the face of nature's indeterminate power. The printed work is divided into distinct series, using a variety of techniques and formats to multiply the points of view. These autonomous series are sometimes grouped together in installations where they complement and illuminate each other, for illustrating an intermediate, floating world suspended between derision and metaphysical melancholy. For WCPF, BM presents two fragments from a series entitled 'Botanique Domestique'. These are drypoint engravings from life, in which the gesture of representing faded bouquets is a final attempt to retain life, the trace of festive and flamboyant flowery splendour, and to reveal the heroic aspect of flowers. The subject is literally that of a nature almost dead : "nature morte always still alive". BM lives and works in Brussels