LONDON.- Gallery FUMI presents ‘Trompe l'œil’, atelier lachaert dhanis’ first solo exhibition with the Gallery.

Unveiling works that move effortlessly from art to design, the show draws on the artists’ uniquely recognisable aesthetics, praised for their ability to deconstruct existing assumptions and challenge our perceptions and expectations, ultimately redefining the relationship between viewer and object.

Masterfully appropriating the language of trompe l’oeil , atelier lachaert dhanis engage in the vernacular of discarded and trash material, joining leftover wood sections and semiprecious stone segments, debris of today’s consumer culture, into enigmatic functional assemblages. The wood pieces disguise their humble nature through a bronze cast, cleverly patinated to deceive the viewer, while the roughly hewn surface texture of the stone works betrays the intrinsically valuable quality of the medium.

At once, striking in their compositional minimalism and captivating in their appearance, the works playfully demand participation, enticing the audience into an ever-changing dialectic of reality and illusion. Whilst their form seems to celebrate their functionality, freezing it in timeless bronze and stone, the works may be equally regarded as contemporary relics, poised in a tightrope balance of profound solidity and inescapable transience. Again with their eclectic output, the artists resort to semi-precious stones and gems, turning them into wall brooches, a commentary on the stereotypical clichés traditionally associated with jewellery.

Exhibited together for the first time, these works, characterised by the primacy of their visual appeal and potent semiotic symbolism, offer a lyrical exposition of atelier lachaert dhanis’ profoundly poetic body of work.

Having graduated from KASK (Royal Academy of Fine Arts) and HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Arts) Antwerp, Sofie Lachaert & Luc d’Hanis create work ranging from fine art to design and site specific installations, ultimately seeking to investigate the boundaries between each practice.

The artists’ work has been shown internationally and has featured in major group exhibitions held, most notably, at Grand-Hornu, Belgium, Design Museum Ghent, Milan Design Week, Museum of Fine Arts Taipei, Maison des Arts, Bruxelles, and Ljubljana Architecture & Design Museum. Amongst their most ambitious projects are commissions for museum and theatre scenography for prestigious institutions such as Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Design Museum Ghent and the Print Room at The Coronet, London.