Love me tender

Two years after her solo exhibition, the galerie Les filles du calvaire is delighted to announce the exhibition Love Me Tender by Katrien de Blauwer, simultaneous with the release of two new books by the artist Why I Hate Cars and Dirty Scenes, published by Libraryman.

The artistic practice of Katrien de Blauwer, who lives and works in Antwerp (Belgium), explores the realm of collage. Rather than a category or a compartmentalising genre, this term should be interpreted as a notion of total commitment. Her artistic idyll with collage started early, when, as a young woman, she studied art and fashion. Like a prelude to her current research, her mood books from that period already displayed a compulsive desire for images and for what lies beyond the image, a fascination for the image’s construction.

For the galerie Les filles du calvaire, Katrien de Blauwer has developed two new series, two narratives in which she delicately reveals herself. As a support to her painted collages, the artist finds inspiration in her childhood memories. In Love Me Tender, both the title of the series and of the exhibition, the male figure is central through its absence. Only men’s attributes remain: cars, roads taken and the elegance of the women encountered; all viewed through the fantasies of a young girl. As for the Dirty Scenes, although they remain discreet, they reveal a little more femininity.