Nathanaëlle Herbelin’s second exhibition at Xavier Hufkens presents a brand new sequence of portraits and interiors that navigate the delicate stability between rapid, on a regular basis expertise and the burden of an unsettled world. Without delay intimate and expansive, these work replicate a need to carry on to moments of connection―small but important interactions with pals, neighbours, and household―amidst an undercurrent of grief, uncertainty, and shifting realities. Herbelin’s strategy is neither sentimental nor indifferent; quite, she paints with an acute consciousness of how private and collective histories intertwine. The act of portray turns into a technique to floor herself, to acknowledge absence, and to bear witness to each quiet rituals and emotional thresholds.
Whereas Herbelin’s earlier works had been characterised by vibrant colors and clearly outlined settings, the work on this exhibition embrace ambiguity. Figures emerge from undefined or weighty backgrounds, emphasising presence over place, reminiscence over setting. Arie, the artist’s late grandfather from Israel, is painted posthumously from images. His depiction resists conventional hierarchies of illustration—somebody who may not usually be immortalised on canvas is right here granted a quiet but steadfast visibility. Herbelin’s gaze is each tender and unflinchingly trustworthy, stripping away embellishment to disclose the uncooked intimacy of her topics.
The absent presence of Herbelin’s late grandfather can be felt in two of Herbelin’s works depicting Jewish mourning rituals. In Shiva, Herbelin reconstructs, from reminiscence, a hen’s-eye view of her grandfather’s house throughout shiva, the seven-day mourning interval following a funeral. The portray displays the charged ambiance of this ritual, through which the bereaved stay at house, marking their loss by time-honoured rituals: sitting on low chairs, overlaying mirrors, and lighting a candle in remembrance. The second, bigger work on this theme, Dîner aux œufs durs [Dinner with Hard-Boiled Eggs], interprets the Se’udat Havra’ah, the meal of condolence that follows a burial. Arduous-boiled eggs―together with bagels, lentils and different spherical meals―are central to this meal, symbolising the cycle of life and renewal. The composition of the portray takes inspiration from Egon Schiele’s Die Freunde (Tafelrunde), groß [The Friends (Round Table), Large], 1918. Simply as Schiele painted his personal circle of pals gathered across the desk, Herbelin populates Dîner aux œufs durs along with her personal acquaintances in addition to imagined figures.
Whereas portraits stay central to Herbelin’s observe, her nuanced depictions of inside areas are equally poignant in conveying temper and ambiance, revealing the psychological depths of her topics. Two inside scenes, particularly, evoke contrasting realities and psychological areas: one depicting a desolate kitchen, Ustensiles, and the opposite, Jérémie qui donne le biberon, portraying the artist’s accomplice, Jérémie, feeding their child in a resort room in China the place the artist not too long ago accomplished a residency. The panoramic view framed by the window within the latter portray contrasts starkly with the small, barely seen window within the kitchen, a refined indicator of confinement and diminished hope. Equally, the non-public possessions on the resort desk stand in distinction to their near-total absence within the kitchen, regardless of different clues suggesting a current human presence. The latter portray holds the quiet act of care in pressure with the busy, impersonal cityscape past, reflecting the distinction between non-public tenderness and the vastness of the skin world.
The interaction between inside and exterior areas―each literal and psychological―on this new physique of labor mirrors the artist’s negotiation of previous and current, presence and absence. Whether or not reconstructing her grandfather’s residence from reminiscence, capturing the transient intimacy of a shared meal, or portray figures from her neighbourhood, Herbelin’s works resist straightforward narratives. As an alternative, her work provide an area the place the on a regular basis and the existential coexist, the place the act of wanting itself turns into an act of recognition.
