Dimitri, December 2016

The workshop, the house, the garden, all three places form a whole, the testimonial of an artist, his aesthetic and his time. The residence we are setting up attests to a wish for continuity. We are maintaining a certain know-how and preserving a memory, but also and above all, making it known and bringing it to life.

Éric Croes

Éric Croes was born at La Louvière in 1978. He grew up in Jodoigne, and at 19, joined the Atelier sculpture de la Cambre. After his training, he expanded his research work, experimenting with different disciplines – watercolour, painting, ink drawing, sculpture – before developing an interest in ceramics. He attended evening courses at the Académie d’Etterbeek, where his interest in ceramics turned into a passion. Composing simple and ordinary objects, the artist discovered in enamel work the depth of colours he had loved when painting in his younger years. In 2014 he bought his first kiln, later installing a ceramics workshop in his basement, where he continued his research into enamels. The artist approached ceramics like a piece of writing, a means of telling stories. The ‘art of fire’, as it is called, also appealed to him, because the created product undergoes a transformation caused by firing which cannot be completely controlled. Éric Croes is and remains a sculptor. He lives and works in Brussels. He is the first resident of the Atelier Pierre Culot.

See the realizations

Daniel Dewar, Grégory Gicquel and Richard Dewar

The artists Daniel Dewar (1976, UK) and Grégory Gicquel (1975, FR) first collaborated as students and have been working together ever since. Their iconoclastic work violates the pre-established codes of sculpture and features a continuous physical reengagement with materials and processes through a hyperawareness surrounding the craftsmanship and tradition of the medium. The display of erudition and joyful anarchy is nicely offset by the many ways in which the often used references glance back at the past, casting an ironic shadow on the present tense in passing.

Recent solo exhibitions include The Mammal and the Sap, Portikus, Frankfurt (2017), Le Nu et la Roche, Hab galerie, Nantes (2016), The Nude and the Sap, Witte de With, Rotterdam (2017), Digitalis, KIOSK, Ghent (2016); Stoneware Murals, Etablissment d’En Face, Brussels (2015); La jeune sculpture, Musée Rodin, Paris (2014); Le Hall, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013); Jus d’orange, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013) and Crêpe Suzette, Spike Island, Bristol (2012). Recent group exhibitions include Pastoral Myths, La Loge 2015 ; Words aren't the thing, CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania (2014); Labour and Wait, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California (2013); Conjuring for Beginners, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2012); and Making is Thinking, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2011). In 2012 they won the Prix Marcel Duchamp.