On the evening of 6th November 2008, you will be able to discover, or rediscover the Autumn-Winter 2009 collection of the young Brussels fashion designer Hüsniye Kardas, at a fashion show organised especially for the event.

Slice of Life, is the name of the two collections: the clothing designed by the fashion designer and the photographic realism of the Antwerp artist Wouter Steel.

Both addresses, the Jonas Gallery in the ‘Rue qui monte’ and the designer’s Boutique are in the Rue de Flandre, almost opposite each other.

The fashion show will begin at 8.00 p.m. both in the Gallery and on the pavements, starting from the young designer’s Boutique.

We are already familiar with the Jonas Gallery, established in December 2005, with a spirited determination to bring exhibitions ‘Downtown’ and shake up the conventions of the ‘ghetto’ galleries.

The initiative of the two young women (the Jonas Gallery is run by Najad Jonas-Menouar) has arisen not only from a determination to invigorate the district, but also to proclaim the interdisciplinarity and opening up of creativity.

Although the Rue de Flandre is often considered, erroneously, as the ‘poor relative’ of the Dansaert district in Brussels, it is home to a number of addresses that are worth discovering, with a series of newly opened stores and galleries.

EXHIBITION: Slice of Life – by Wouter Steel

For the ‘Slice of Life’ exhibition, the gallery is presenting the latest canvases from the works of photographic realism by the Antwerp artist Wouter Steel.

With an aversion to pseudo-intellectualism, which is at the height of fashion but devoid of meaning, combining a rebellious stubbornness and a love of his art, Wouter Steel seeks to reflect a personal mythology in compelling, sensual images that remain fixed in one’s mind. He pays tribute to old masters, but subtly and with a perfectionist touch. For the illusion has to be as accurate as possible. Like all artists, his work is a quest for true authenticity that is never quite satisfied, never quite fulfilled. His themes are contemporary and universal, erotic at times and humorous at others, yet always there is an underlying, existential questioning of the essence of seduction, together with the sense and nonsense of our society.

The works reveal their quality slowly: the spectator is first seduced by the sensuality which bursts out from the canvases; then we are left to contemplate seduction itself, in perfect harmony with the artist’s technique.

Wouter Steel was born in 1974 in Leuven. He lives and works in Antwerp. This is his third exhibition at the Jonas Gallery.