CL2 Blue Shadow, CL9 Pink Shadow and Sunset B

Since the 1980s Belgian artist Ann Veronica Janssens has been developing an experimental body of work focused on in-situ installations using apparently simple, and at times even intangible, materials like glass, light, sound, and artificial fog. Her visceral artistic propositions explore the permeability of contexts, inviting the viewers to position themselves near a threshold of visual, psychological, and temporal instability.

The triptych CL2 Blue Shadow, CL9 Pink Shadow and Sunset B, with a different colored PVC filter applied to each of the three glass panels, creates iridescent reflections and chromatic variations of blue, pink, and orange depending on the angle of the viewer.

Janssens, who originally wanted to be an architect, has adopted and brought together the interplay of geometry and light in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s designs with the atmospheric light variations in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she grew up. Interested in what escapes her, rather than in what can be defined, Janssens develops a poetics of the ungraspable and opaque. In this liminal state her work opens up all the potentiality of a space to morph into something other, translated into tactile experiences. Through their mere presence, movement, and immersion, the audience members participate in a subtle activation of the works.

(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "Abundant Futures", C3A, Córdoba, 2022)