“Cecile Broekaert’s cardboard paintings are almost the size of a postcard, a vast collection of images that she keeps aligned in boxes like family pictures.

Fragments that can be regrouped in series or into typologies: landscapes, details, portraits, objects, plants, cityscape. With their appealing colors, they might look innocent at first sight; pretty pictures, details of decorative objects. But like make-up or masks, that’s only a façade, hiding an underlying feeling of melancholy or nostalgia for a time or place you’ve never known, also known as Anemoia.

A monotype print or an engraving sometimes hide under the layers of paint and oil pastels of these cinematographic nocturnal views. Cecile covers up and scratches the surface, carving shapes into the images. Each faceless character becomes a palimpsest, the accumulation of different stories into a blurry memory. These anonymous lonely figures are sleepless night workers, movie cowboys, children’s toys and dolls.

Glimpsing at them puts us into the position of a voyeur, like peeking through an illuminated window at night.”

© Moss collective

Photo: © Het Bos