For artist duo, Sofie Lachaert and Luc d’Hanis, life and work are inextricably intertwined. They have an intriguing oeuvre involving objects, furniture and situation-oriented installations whereby the

boundaries between art and craft are both questioned and crossed.

Lachaert and d’Hanis have a preference for the outmoded concept of ‘applied art’. Their work is rooted in craftsmanship of the highest order. Their virtuosity in making and the perfection of the execution might be called ‘craft’, but the concept is fine art.

Lachaert & d’Hanis make all kind of things, but most of all they make things of which you can’t really say outright what they are for. Their practice is one of a kind. They are autonomous, that is to say: they’ve acquired the freedom to do exactly what they want to do. That is not an easy position to be in. People prefer the world to be organized in a clear way. Art is art, craft is craft. When you find a different head on the body, confusion ensues.

If you look closely you’ll notice that their objects have a certain ‘iconography’, well-known images are re-used, re-organized or changed completely, symbols and stories shifted.

So it is essential that you really look at the work, look properly, look twice.

Sometimes your eyes are deceived, sent the wrong way, tricked.

What you think you see is not really what you actually see - there may be a lot more to it.

​

For their second solo show at Valerie Traan Gallery, Lachaert & d’Hanis present ‘Bits and Pieces’. A thematic exploration of fragments of memories, its content can be found in those irregular scraps, shreds and slivers that express the origins and relativity of our existence. Literally and figuratively eroded but not vanquished, the passage of time translates these dim and distant souvenirs of the past into metaphorical objects of the present.

In Bits and Pieces, (precious) stones, minerals and metals become materials of unusually rarity, yet sometimes of daily use and substance. As a result, they take on a different value system, flipping considerations of what is deemed valuable or worthless.

A piece of graphite is not a diamond, even

if it takes its shape.

Or perhaps it is?