Timothée Schelstraete: Prossima

November 12—December 24, 2021

Kortrijk, Belgium

CAI Gallery is pleased to present Prossima, a solo exhibition by the French artist Timothée Schelstraete. The exhibition consists of fifteen paintings exploring the artist’s idea of Prossima, a philosophical notion of one thing leading to another. The exhibition runs from November 12 until December 24, 2021, from Wednesday until Saturday from 13:00 to 18:00, or by appointment.

Timothée Schelstraete (born in 1985, residing and working in Paris, France) is a contemporary painter best known for his black and white, monochrome paintings in which representational imagery seemingly disintegrates within the picture. Images, varied in subject matter – think of plants, trees, landscapes, daily objects or urban elements – are deconstructed throughout the artist’s creative process, before being reconstructed in the act of painting. The artistic process consists of an amalgam of techniques, manipulating the picture analogously and digitally, incorporating photography, abstraction, repetition, grids, glitches, glazing, scratches, textures, patterns and highlights, constructing the painting by manner of multiple layers of everything mentioned above.

Doing so, Schelstraete achieves a strongly homogenous oeuvre combining printing with painting, or ink toner with oil paint. Schelstraete discovered the notion of Prossima during an artist residency in Sicily and is strongly connected to the creative process of the artist. With every painting, the final result is the visual product of a series of decisions, actions or interventions, guiding the painter from one thing to another. Schelstraete’s approach is marked by intuition and reaction, as one brushstroke, image transfer or painting paves the way for the next. As a result, the gallery wall becomes an invisible line by which the viewer navigates from one painting to another. Pittura, Prossima, Pittura, Prossima…

Timothée Schelstraete studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Rouen and has exhibited nationally and internationally at renowned galleries and institutions including Thaddaeus Ropac, Musée Rolin, Centre d’Art Contemporain (CAC) in Meymac, POCTB in Orléans or Maison des Arts de Créteil (MAC). As a result, the works by Timothée Schelstraete are featured in reputable private and public collections including FRAC Normandie in Rouen, Goethe-Institut Palermo and the Collection de la ville de Vitry-sur-Seine.