Ballon Rouge is pleased to present works by Lucie Mercier, Sofia Pashaei, Maryam Rastghalam, and Pei-Hsuan Wang at Art on Paper, Brussels 2023 from October 5-8, 2023 (Booth B1). The booth brings together four perspectives and practices by women who make work about their identity. Whether this be about queerness, about otherness, about family, gender, politics, or culture, each artist parses several of these ideas at once, igniting a conversation within and between the works.
Lucie Mercier (b. 1991, France) studied in Eindhoven (Netherlands), Ghent (Belgium) and graduated from the architecture school of Lille, France. She exhibited in Montreal (2022 and 2023) and in Lille for her first solo exhibition "Sweet Survival" in 2023. She began painting in 2021, after years of dissatisfaction in the field of architecture. Her very personal works sensitively explore political, feminist, mental health and empowerment issues. She questions the norms of representation through the prism of the female gaze, the re-appropriation of nudity, and the transition of the female body from the status of object to that of subject. Her works aestheticize daily life with a vernacular emphasis on the political, all imbued with the joy of sorority, power, and feminine anger. She is based in Paris.
Sofia Pashaei (b. 1989, Sweden) is an artist and filmmaker that through the use of paintings and animations investigates the perception of otherness and cultural belonging. Informed by memory and research her works are rooted in a highly composed reality with a base in narrative storytelling. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Spain, London, and Belgium. She exhibited with Ballon Rouge at CAN Art Fair, Ibiza 2022 and 2023 and she had a solo exhibition with the gallery in September 2022 titled “Meaning in the off hours”. She was also included in a group exhibition at Fondation Boghossian in Brussels in 2022. As an animation director Pashaei has worked with clients such as The New York Times, Google, MTV, Adult Swim and her animated short films have been internationally screened at animation and film festivals. She is based in Brussels.
Maryam Rastghalam (b. 1981, Iran) studied in Florence and currently lives in Milan. She has exhibited in Italy, Germany, Iran, and the United States. Rastghalam is exhibiting works from three different series’. The consistent thread in all of the series is the presence and/or suggestion of the female body, and along with this, ideas of mortality and life. For example, her “Shadows (Bodies and Bunnies) series from 2021, a body of work inspired by her own pregnancy. She is based in Milan.
Pei-Hsuan Wang (b. 1987, Taiwan) has exhibited work at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei, and the National Gallery of Indonesia, among others. Recent solo exhibitions include Ghost Eat Mud at Kunsthal Gent, Ghent (2022), I've Left My Body to Occupy Others at Good Weather, Chicago (2020), For Iris at Gallery 456, New York (2020), and You Are My Sunshine at Taipei Contemporary Art Center (2019), and she had a solo booth with Ballon Rouge at Art Brussels 2023. Wang currently has a solo exhibition with Ballon Rouge titled “Gratitude Is A Colored Vessel,” on view until November 11th. Wang’s practice is rooted in ways of engaging with her identity. Much of this centers on her and her family's diasporic migration from Taiwan to the US. Her work also explores her relationship with the women in her life; takes inspiration from ancient Chinese and East Asian myths and folklore, and plays with the idea of shapeshifting. She is based in Gent.