museum of new art 

Fifteen years ago, in 2001, Belgian-American artist Sacha Eckes was invited by Jef Bourgeau and the Museum of New Art (MONA) to exhibit her work in Detroit.

 

By the time she was to show her work, her work had been destroyed in a fire in San Francisco. She rose to the challenge, and called the exhibition The Burnt Show, displaying her burnt work and an installation of melted and burnt artefacts.

 

Sacha was so taken by the city that she decided to move to Detroit . While living in a Detroit loft, where the late Gilda Snowden and Glenn Barr, among others worked – she organized an ambitious exhibition called the Bay Area Show, bringing over thirty Bay Area artists to Tangent Gallery in Detroit.

 

Sacha’s been living back in her ‘homeland’ Belgium since 2007 and was invited by Jef Bourgeau to exhibit her work at Camille Gallery, where Jef has been given a space to curate.

 

Sacha will be exhibiting a part of her ongoing series titled One-A-Day.

 

She has selected one month’s (January 2016) worth of drawings doodles and paintings she made on a daily basis – on postcards, advertisements, posters, pictures etc.

 

This series specifically expresses her desire to leave some sign of being alive, leaving a daily mark.

 

Since becoming a single mom, her social life has been drastically minilmilized so she uses social media – mostly Instagram and facebook-  to post one work a day.

 

One-A-Day is her connection to the world, near and far. Her canvas, her gallery.

 

 

"The parallel universe of Sacha Eckes operates according to a set of rules all its own. Its denizens seem to function in a constant state of failure, where success is measured by perversity of outcome. It even has a diabolical aspect – literally – because devils make sporadic appearances as agents for good or evil, depending on how you assess the situation. In this alternate world the dogmas and assumptions of our own world come in for a thorough drubbing – usually delivered lightly and with a kind of twisted grace.

 

Eckes works directly, impulsively, drawing inspiration from her surroundings, current events, life, love, her own work and most importantly the established art world, none of which escape the sting of mockery – often subtle, at times blatant. On that score her work is famously reactive, appropriating the pages of prestigious journals such as Art Forum and subjecting them to a highly personal process of transformation and pointed visual commentary. She has even been known to make over posters announcing the exhibitions of her famous peers – most recently Michael Borremans – subverting them in ways that verge on hilarious while exposing the mechanisms of artistic celebrity and commerce.

 

If the visual idiom of Eckes’ work is rooted in cartoons, it doesn’t stay put for long. What begins with the small format and graphically concise migrates across media, spilling over into paint and collage and expanding as needed to occupy different formats, different spaces. Her signature mark supplies the unifying factor, running like a neon thread throughout." 

 

- Irene Schaudies