CLOSER

a duo exhibition featuring works by
CARLOS CABALLERO - LENA MARIE EMRICH


LENA MARIE EMRICH (b. 1991, Göttingen, Germany) is a sculptor working between Belgium and
Germany. Her practice moves fluidly between conceptual research and material precision, often
merging sculptural form with fragmentary poetics. Emrich explores the social and aesthetic
roles of rigid objects, subtly upgrading them through minimal but pointed interventions. Colla-
boration and a deep
engagement with systems of value, protection, and presence are central to her work.
Her exhibitions include Import Export Gallery, Warsaw (2025), Office Impart, Berlin (2024), DS
Gallery, Paris (2024), Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Kunstverein Göttingen, Kunstraum LLC, New York,
and the Sprengel Museum, Hannover.
Her work is held in several public and private collections, including the Sprengel Museum, Bur-
ger Collection, Giancarlo Ligabue Foundation, ADAC Collection, and Marval Collection.
We are honoured to host the first Belgian exhibition of Lena Marie Emrich at our gallery in
Kortrijk!

CARLOS CABALLERO (° 1983, Camagüey, Cuba) lives and works in Ghent, Belgium.
His ‘silent’ oeuvre is like a fresh ripple of water, floating on the processing of nuances, details
and compositional-spatial shifts, both in terms of color and motif.
His paintings are usually of a small size; a format that allows him to work in a concentrated and
precise manner. The images appear immaculate, almost geometrically exact and reveal very
little tangible information. The viewer finds him- or herself in a thin dialogue with a visual
language that remains cryptic-abstract. And yet, when putting your patience to the test,
it becomes clear that the motifs in the paintings refer partly to typography and the suggestions
of architectural details. Carlos Caballero’s paintings don’t ‘cry out’ this information; the use of
softly and evenly applied acrylic paint brings peace and allows the (attentive) viewer to narrate
the story.
The monochrome, flat paint lends itself perfectly to the sparse introduction of ‘elements’ that,
independent of each other, start a ‘conversation’. One could describe this ‘living’ oeuvre,
constant and slowly progressing, as a linear pictorial sequence.