New Horizons: Remaut.

Xochi Art Gallery celebrates its first anniversary with New Horizons, a solo exhibition of Belgian abstract artist Roger Remaut. The show brings renewed resonance to the artist’s enduring mantra: “Make ART not War.”

New Horizons captures a pivotal period of experimentation in Remaut’s five-decade career, focusing on works created between 1997 and 2000. Following his relocation from Ostend to the UK, the artist explored new materials, forms, and conceptual frameworks. The result is a body of work that balances intimacy, social consciousness, and formal invention, marked by a luminous palette, expansive compositions, and atmospheric depth.

Daydream explores masculinity, desire, and vulnerability through layered imagery, found objects, and subtle text. In contrast, Summer in Essex celebrates domestic joy and creative freedom. Dominated by luminous whites, these works mark a dramatic shift from Remaut’s earlier grays and blacks. During this period, he also experimented with English milk bottles, transforming everyday objects into art. Mounted on canvas or arranged in crates, the bottles assert a playful, Duchampian presence while retaining Remaut’s tactile sensibility.

Extending this period of experimentation, the show also includes three works from a later period. Remaut’s Relief series is inspired by the favelas of Brazil and his concern with global homelessness. Works from this series were selected for the International Assemblage Exhibition in Berlin in 2005.

“I don’t paint to please an audience — I am the audience, relishing in my own performance.” — Roger Remaut