Bruno V. Roels: Looking for Paradise

New work by Belgian artist Bruno V. Roels, replete with his signature visions of palm trees, will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery from April 28 through June 16, 2023. Looking for Paradise, an exhibition featuring 17 photographic works, combines Roels’ interest in language, modern art, and semiotics. Known for exploring the multiplicity of the iconic palm tree in photographic repetition and variation, many of his new works incorporate hand painted lettering and are manually edited by drawing directly on his prints. 

Several of the works are emblazoned with the question, “Looking for Paradise?” Palm trees from all angles, gleaming moonlight spreading on placid coastal waters, and diffuse rising suns emerging through clouds are key images that signify that paradise. The vintage-looking, coffeecolored prints seem like an elusive antique dream of possibility. In remaining faithful, iconographically, to the palm tree, Roels sparks escapist associations with holiday, adventure, and wealth, while remaining aware of the dark reality of a colonial past. 

Through darkroom experiments and by playing with the endlessly reproducible qualities of the photographic medium, Roels creates unique works that often consist of multiple variations on the same negative. Accidental stains and creases are left visible. This experimental and organic process results in a playful body of work that transcends the photographic medium in the strict sense of the word. 

Roels considers the act of printing as important as the act of photographing itself. He is constantly documenting his life and building a sizable archive, which he uses to explore the analog photographic process. Searching for poetry and photographic truth in sequences and fluctuations, Roels reduces obvious subject matter to abstract information through numerous reiterations.

Roels’s work has been seen in solo exhibitions at Gallery Fifty One, Antwerp, at numerous international art fairs, and in group exhibitions including George Eastman Museum. Roels’s books include Trying To Make It Real, 2021, published by Hopper & Fuchs; Flowers For Henriette, published by Bruno V. Roels & 28 Vignon Street; A Few Model Palm Trees, 2019, published By Art Paper Editions; Fixing Landscapes, 2018, published by Gallery Fifty One; The Pyramids And Palm Trees, 2018, published by Silence Editions; and I Dreamt An Island, 2015, published by Gallery Fifth One. His work is part of major international private and public collections including The Walther Collection and the Milwaukee Art Museum.