Atelier de l’Enjoliveur - Quartier Gaucheret Schaerbeek, Brussels
06.10.2024 - 19.12.2024
In January 2024, artist and teacher Roel Kerkhofs moved into his new studio in the gaucheret neighborhood of Schaerbeek, Brussels. As part of his doctorate: the fight against loneliness, trying to reveal mystic truths (quote Martin Creed) and out of love for collective creation, he invited a group of former students to become part of the Atelier de l’Enjoliveur.
In the future, the studio wants to become a place for experimentation and exhibitions but before inviting outside people, it wants to get to know its neighbors. Driven by curiosity and the search for beauty in the everyday life, Roel Kerkhofs and Gustave Demoen together built a cart with which they want to get to know the relatively small neighborhood of about 10 streets.
The cart symbolizes the floor of the studio, which was not accidentally painted in the same dark red. Over a period of two months, they drive out the floor three times for four days in search of a parking spot where they can stop temporarily. Once parked, the cart and all the art work materials it carries becomes an object of dialogue. In doing so the passersby are invited to make their own contribution to the project or cart that often changes its function: a table, a stage, a musical instrument, a canvas, a kitchen....
Before the studio became a home for artists, it was a car garage. The name enjoliveur refers to a hubcap in French or literally translated a beautifier. In Ateliers participatifs de l’Enjoliveurs, Roel and Gustave share their own and go in search of the neighbors their enjoliveurs de la vie.