Schönfeld Gallery Brussels
Rivoli Brussels
Chaussée de Waterloo 690 - 21
1180, Brussels.
info@schonfeldgallery.com
Thursday — Saturday
13:00 — 18:00
18/05- 19/07 2025
We all know the zigzag: short lines that shift back and forth in a repeating pattern of sharp angles. In Coolen’s visual vocabulary, this motif recurs frequently. It brings rhythm to her work, animates it—makes it move. Visually intriguing, certainly, but also suggestive of deeper meanings.
Archaeologists and anthropologists often interpret the zigzag as an apotropaic symbol—a sign meant to ward off evil or misfortune. Coolen noticed such motifs during her travels along the fringes of Russia—in Moldova, Romania, and Georgia. She saw them on roof ornaments, where the winding, erratic lines were designed to confuse malevolent gazes and protect the home from hardship and sorrow.
But this decorative design cannot be reduced to a shield against misfortune. The zigzag also expresses a tension between opposites: good and evil, light and dark, heaven and earth. In their collision, a momentary balance is formed. At the heart of Coolen’s practice lies the relationship between image and viewer. Not to evoke affinity or recognition, but to question the status of the object. From this perspective, Coolen reexamines her subjects time and again—each time casting them anew.
That is why the thistle plays a pivotal role in this solo exhibition. Positioned at the heart of the gallery, Coolen presents this weed boldly to the viewer. Once spit out by Christian tradition for its associations with sin and earthly suffering, the plant is preserved by the artist—cast in bronze. Through this material choice, she emphasizes its strength, resilience, and beauty.
Through the thistle, we enter Coolen’s umwelt: forests, open landscapes, asphalt, and fallow ground. Abandoned, forgotten, or avoided places. Not a soul in sight. Her choice of the thistle is therefore self-evident: this pioneer species thrives in poor soil, under the harshest conditions. It prepares the ground for new life. Even in cracked asphalt, it is often the first to take root. That is where nature begins to speak. For no herb can withstand a weed. In this exhibition, we encounter such works: Pioneer, Scapegoat, The Wheat and the Chaff, Thistles, Tatarnik, Tree of Life, Gül, Black Swan, and Echoes of Labours. Each one embodies duality.
Coolen’s work asks to be experienced. It resists easy interpretation, theory, or classification. The vulnerability she displays contains reflection, doubt, and quiet resistance: c’est la vie, c’est l’art. Coolen continues to expand and deepen her experiential horizon.
Perhaps this exhibition touches yours.
Perhaps not.
Stefan Joosten, mei 2025