VNH Gallery is delighted to announce the solo exhibition of the artist Eric Croes titled « Ni gris, ni vert » (9 May – 16 June 2018) in our Project space.

Eric Croes has shown great dedication to ceramics for several years now, as he is particularly fond of this millenary technique. Indeed, it allows him to work with the most in nite number of possibilities and experimentations as the process of creating a new sculpture brings him to discover new colours and forms. From this creative approach is built the nal shape, which is the outcome of an exhaustive procedure that always begins with collecting ideas and drawing a great number of sketches. Bridging the gap between modelling and drawing, Eric Croes designs his ceramics such as collages from which erupt shapes, associations and mutations. These are articulated together and complement each other in order to become the most perfect substrate to reverie and imagination.

The barmaid was eighteen And I am old as winter Instead of drowning into a glass I went for a walk in spring Inside her eyes shaped like almonds Neither grey nor green

The title of the exhibition, « Ni gris ni vert » (Neither grey nor green), alludes to the refrain of the famous song written by Léo Ferré and Jean-Roger Caussimon « Comme à Ostende » (Like in Ostende). The song conveys the « Belgian blue », this clever mix of grey and green that can be found as much as in the sky than in the Northern sea but most of all in the eyes of the barmaid mentioned in the text. Eric Croe’s memories of his Northern sea holidays are intertwined with « the sea horses heading down and smashing their manes in front of the deserted casino », Ostende, the native city of the painter of grotesques and intimidating masks, James Ensor, the tattoos covering over the shrimp shermen’s arms all the way to their ngertips, a visit of the sail training vessel « The Mercator », the crafted lamps his grandmother used to make from bottles of Brandy, sea monsters in aquariums, candy vending machines, and so on... So many souvenirs that all end up clashing into these polychromatic ceramics. Moreover, the sparse lighting subdued by the ropes weathered by time allows us to distinguish a few details from the fourteen sculptures presented, like the fourteen chapters of a « personal mythology ».

Eric Croes was born at La Louvière (Belgium) in 1978. He now lives and works in Brussels (Belgium).