ArochaSchraenen 

Carla Arocha + Stéphane Schraenen Carla Arocha (b. 1961, Venezuela) and Stéphane Schraenen (b.1971, Belgium) work primarily with sculpture, photography and installation that sometimes in combination with additional media. Above all, Carla Arocha & Stéphane Schraenen work with light. Or its absence. If this seems fairly obvious when considering the photography, it’s equally obvious when considering the sculptures and installations that use mirror of various forms, particularly the highly reflective mirrored Plexiglas that has become something of a signature material for them. Their work has sometimes been considered as ‘optical art’, belonging to a tradition that -with varying degrees of intent and serendipity- targets the intersections between the physics of light, the biology of the human eye and the idiosyncrasies of neurological phenomena as its key arenas of activity. Yet theirs is a practice full of implied narratives, flickers of meaning and autobiographical fragments underscored by a conceptual mindset despite its aesthetics that initially link it formally with abstract, modernist and minimalist traditions. Carla Arocha + Stéphane Schraenen live and work in Antwerp. Recent exhibitions include ‘New Art from Belgium’, Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne ; ‘Artefact 2011’, S.T.U.K., Leuven; ‘Sequence #4’, Koraalberg Gallery, Antwerp; ‘Célébration’ FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand; ‘The State of Things’ Curated by Ai Wei Wei and Luc Tuymans, BOZAR, Brussels and the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; ‘5x5 Castello 09’, Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castello, Castello; ‘Hier Waak Ik’ Periferico, Caracas Arte Contemporaneo. Curated by Jesus Fuenmayor; ‘Brussels Biennial: Art as Borderland’ Curated by Barbara Vanderlinden et al, Belgium and ‘Marauders’, moniquemeloche, Chicago. In addition to more traditional exhibitions, they have undertaken a number of large-scale commissions and projects including a permanent public art work for the Chicago public transport system, a gigantic new work for the London Festival of Architecture 2008 and a number of collaborations with London-based fashion designers Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos including an intervention in the Wallace Collection and an art work forming part of the catwalk at London’s former Eurostar terminal at Waterloo. In January 2012 they are included in ‘Spectral Metropole’ at theVžigalica Gallery, the city of Ljubljana’s contemporary art space followed by a solo exhibition at Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos (CAB) in Spain opening in late January 2012.