Leen Voet at M – Museum Leuven

Artist: Leen Voet

Curated by: Eva Wittocx

Venue: M – Museum Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Date: April 7 – September 10, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and M – Museum Leuven

M opens the first comprehensive retrospective of Belgian artist Leen Voet on 7 April. This comprehensive exhibition will bring together paintings and drawings from many different series from the past years. Leen Voet has also created a new series for M – based on three paintings from the museum’s collection. Alongside it, the first monograph (Dutch/English) on her work will be published.

Leen Voet creates series of paintings that she brings together in spatial installations. At Museum M, she is displaying several of these groups of works for the first time. The impetus and starting point for each of the series is the specific interest of the artist in both cultural practices and elements found in her own environment. Her subjects, which include family, autonomy, religion or education, provoke reflection on power relations, social structures and artisthood. Each series starts from its own logic, rules, or precepts which in turn lead to new variations and decisions. Her works challenge us to consider our affective connection with the things that surround us. How does context and expectation guide our gaze? How do we look at images? What can a painting be?

Leen Voet’s paintings hover between figuration and abstraction, bringing together vibrant colours and geometric shapes in a balanced composition. Each painting stands on its own, yet takes on additional meanings through its place in the series. Throughout each series, Leen Voet explores variations and other painting styles, or plays with multiplicity, duplication and uniqueness. The spatial arrangement and the way the works relate to each other reinforce both their connection and singularity. In this exhibition, several series are brought together in a sequence of rooms, and complemented with drawings. In the tower room, the last room in the exhibition, new work is displayed.

Leen Voet (born 1971) lives and works in Brussels. She has been active as an artist for almost 30 years, at fist mainly working with slide installations but since 2012 with paintings, drawings and installations. She has been collaborating with Brussels-based gallery Baronian since 2017. The exhibition at M is her first retrospective.

Leen Voet had solo exhibitions at Netwerk Aalst (1997 and 2013), Villa Arson, Nice (2002), The Living Art Museum (Nýló), Reykjavík (2005), CIAP, Hasselt (2006 and 2018), Etablissement d’en Face, Brussels (2006), FeliXart Museum, Drogenbos (2010), trampoline, Antwerp (2014 and 2016), Kunstbunker Forum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Nuremberg (DE, 2016) and Baronian, Brussels (2018, 2019 and 2022). She participated in group exhibitions at Zoersel ’96, Zoersel (1996), W139, Amsterdam (1999), Netwerk, Aalst (2000 and 2003), Bozar, Brussels (2003), De Garage, Mechelen (2008), Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel (CH, 2010), Etablissement d’en Face, Brussels (2012), Broadcast Gallery, Dublin (2013), Wiels, Brussels (2015), Museum Dr. Guislain, Ghent (2016), La Loge, Brussels (2018), Frans Masereel Centre, Kasterlee (2019) and M HKA, Antwerp (2019).