Bert De Leeuw - What Remains

Bert De Leeuw / Camiel Van Breedam / Marius Melissas

01.11.26 - 29.11.26

BERT DE LEEUW - CAMIEL VAN BREEDAM - MARIUS MELISSAS

The occasion for this exhibition is Bert De Leeuw’s edition 1/24x23x22...x1: oak miniatures based on the bronze sculptures beside the KMSKA and in the Middelheim Museum. Alongside the edition we show two original drawings and two full-scale polystyrene prototypes, which were used to make the moulds for casting the bronzes.

Around this edition we bring together the work of Bert De Leeuw (1926–2007) and Camiel Van Breedam (b. 1936), two artists who knew and admired each other in the days of G58 at the Hessenhuis in Antwerp. We set their work in dialogue with that of the young artist Marius Melissas (b. 1999), who asks the same questions anew.

In the early 1960s, both made so-called matter paintings. This was innovative at the time, because the work resisted classification. It was no longer a painting in the classical sense, yet it was not a sculpture either. Matter itself became the means of expression. De Leeuw applied sand, glue, glass beads and later even bitumen to his canvases. Van Breedam combined filler with found materials such as bicycle spokes and umbrella ribs. Their paths then diverged. De Leeuw moved on to large bronze sculptures, while Van Breedam became one of the pioneers of assemblage art in Belgium.

That same urge to experiment with matter is found today in the work of Marius Melissas. He works with bioplastics and builds his pieces from a mixture of beeswax, rabbit-skin glue and sawdust. On this he applies iwa-enogu: mineral pigments from the Japanese painting tradition, nihonga, made from ground stone.

Like Van Breedam, Melissas uses found materials, but as supports: old aluminium and brass moulds, reclaimed natural stone and solid wood. On these supports he paints with shellac and mineral pigments. Some works are framed in recycled aluminium that he casts himself.

Melissas explores how art can be made sustainably, using innovative materials with a low environmental impact. In 1960, matter was a way to push the boundaries of painting. For Melissas it also becomes an ethical choice, and so he brings matter painting into the present.

We look forward to welcoming you at the opening:

Sunday 1 November 2026, from 2 pm

Exposition runs until 29 November.
Open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 6 PM.

More about the edition: bertdeleeuw.be