L'invité.e surprise

L’invité.e surprise is the first solo exhibition in Belgium by Solène Rigou (°1996, Paris). Presented across the first two rooms of Meessen, Brussels, her wood drawings, intimate in scale and icon-like in dimension, require particular attention. The back room features an installation that plays more freely with scale and includes three jackets designed by the artist.

Rigou's work, executed with colored pencils on poplar wood, draws comparisons to 15th-century Flemish painters in its meticulous layering of pigment. The artist focuses exclusively on drawing hands, which she considers portraits and a truthful representation of a person, citing poet Pierre Reverdy: "The hand does not lie." These hands, often life-sized and based on spontaneous photographs, capture fleeting moments and ordinary experiences, transforming them into universal observations.