Gap in the Clouds

The Numbers, 2020
The Numbers, 2020
Shriver, 2020
Shriver, 2020
Mercurial, 2020-2021
Mercurial, 2020-2021
Mercurial, 2020-2021
Mercurial, 2020-2021
Kingly, 2021
Kingly, 2021
Tumbling, 2020
Tumbling, 2020
The Numbers, 2020
The Numbers, 2020
The Numbers, 2020
The Numbers, 2020
Interlaced, 2021
Interlaced, 2021
Annunciation, 2021
Annunciation, 2021
Dark Blue Air,2021
Dark Blue Air,2021
Boogie Boogie, 2021
Boogie Boogie, 2021
I Hear the Ligh, 2021
I Hear the Ligh, 2021
The Grate Piece of Turf, 2021
The Grate Piece of Turf, 2021
Water Signs, 2021
Water Signs, 2021
Blue Globe Thistle ,2020
Blue Globe Thistle ,2020
Blue Shore, 2021
Blue Shore, 2021
The Meadows, 2021
The Meadows, 2021
The Two Shores, 2021
The Two Shores, 2021
Osain, 2022
Osain, 2022
Rose, 2021
Rose, 2021
Red Glyder, 2022
Red Glyder, 2022
O DIESES ist das Tier, das es nicht gibt,2022
O DIESES ist das Tier, das es nicht gibt,2022
O DIESES ist das Tier, das es nicht gibt, 2022
O DIESES ist das Tier, das es nicht gibt, 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Breaking Blue, 2022. Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Breaking Blue, 2022. Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
The Open Garden Door, 2022. Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
The Open Garden Door, 2022. Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022
Installation view Exhibition Gap in the Clouds Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen
20.05-28.08 2022

In his recent work, Brey continues investigating seemingly oppositional aspects of the human experience––the inherent tensions between binary concepts like life and death, dreams and nightmares, masculinity and femininity, blackness and whiteness, manmade and organic.

The blending of cultural iconographies achieved via a rigorous chromatic, formal, and conceptual engagement is emblematic of Brey’s artistic ethos, aspects which are also omnipresent in Gap in the Clouds.

Gap in the Clouds focuses on the works Brey made during the Covid-19 pandemic when, like most people, he was unable to leave his home and studio. The title refers to the hope one must bring oneself to feel amidst worldwide and personal crises. It is about looking up when everything is dragging you downwards. It is about seeing and remembering blue despite the grey on the horizon.

This ties into the very strong presence of the colour blue in this exhibition. In this period Brey has adopted an almost exclusively blue palette as a way to find connection to the world beyond confinement. He associated blue with the sky and the sea, symbols of unattainable expansiveness and freedom. Blue therefore found its way into Brey’s work, through different materials, ranges, formats and shades. This can be both seen in his works on paper in which

these blue-experimentations originated, installations and in some of the pieces of the

ongoing series Every Life is a Fire. Every Life is a Fire is a series of works in which Brey has transformed non-descript black, archival boxes into compact, unfoldable universes, each of them carrying unique and

specific meditations on life, psychology, spirituality, religion and nature. This multifacetedness is also reflected in the ways in which these works have been presented throughout the years. In 2015 at the M HKA they were displayed in a more performative way, being opened and closed by volunteers, in the 56th Venice Biennale curated by Okwui

Enwensor they were intertwined between themselves in the large vitrines, acquiring a more museal character, and in the Gerhard Marcks Haus (2019) they were both shown to and hidden from the public, emphasising the air of mystery surrounding the works. These three forms of presentation are merged together in Gap in the Clouds, creating a vast landscape of possibility and renewal of both the works themselves and space at large.