‘A lily grafted onto a dandelion’

replied James Ensor to the Proust questionnaire about his favourite flower*

Canadian painter Delphine Hennelly spent her summer in Brussels, visiting museums in Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges and Brussels, and using the gallery as her studio. Curious to see the result? Join us this Thursday 29 August, 5-8pm at our Yzer space.

In addition to Hennelly’s paintings, there will be a selection of works by friends and family artists, all reinterpreting the representation of flora today in their own way.

‘A lily grafted onto a dandelion’
August 29 - September 7, 2024

with Anastasia Bay, Marlies de Clerck, Vincent Chenut, Sean Crossley, Filip van Dingenen, Mark Dion, Matthias Dornfeld, Hadassah Emmerich, Delphine Hennelly, Geert Marijnissen, Claire Milbrath, Victoria Palacios, Milène Sanchez, Kristof Santy, Julien Saudubray, Felipe Talo, Anna Zemánková, Dirk Zoete

*In April 1926, the Ostend magazine La Flandre Littéraire published an anthology of literary texts penned by James Ensor since 1921. They included a version of the famous Questionnaire de Marcel Proust, several of which had been in circulation since the late 19th century. Basically a personality test, it was very popular as a parlour game. Ensor adapted Proust’s version slightly, calling the result an ‘interview’ – a relatively new journalistic form at the time. (Source KMSKA - link in bio)

Image: Delphine Hennelly, Sweet Sorrow, 2024, Oil on linen, 160×130cm (detail)

Delphine Hennelly’s work addresses the human condition and prescribed gender roles through her use of pattern, repetition, and uncanny colour palettes. Reminiscent of silk ribbons or powdery tufted up- holstery, Hennelly’s paintings extend her longstanding interest in color as a way to create atmosphere and mood. Whether suggestive of foggy full-moon nights or drizzly afternoons with storm clouds on the horizon, the color palettes of her works reflect moments in time that are neither turbulent nor fully calm.

Her work is particularly inspired by tapestries, art history, and early modernism, which she references through motifs, compositional structures and gestures. Some of Hennelly’s figures are modelled after the ones in popular eighteenth-century “boudoir paintings,” whose sensual qualities Hennelly ampli- fies. They sink into luxurious piles of bedding or into the folds of rich, satiny garments.

Hennelly works in series, exploring the same motif as an act of repetition, influenced by the writing of Giles Deleuze and the notion of continuous time and the conflation of the past and the future with the present.

Delphine Hennelly (b. 1979) received her BFA from Cooper Union in 2002 and her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Visual Arts at Rutgers University in 2017. She is the recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award and her work has been exhibited in the United States, Europe and Canada. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including ArtMaze Magazine, Nut Publica- tion, and New American Paintings. In 2022, Hennelly was a resident artist of Palazzo Monti (Brescia). She lives and works in Montréal.