FABIEN MÉRELLE – ARBRE SENTINELLE
2025-10-20As always, Mérelle surprises with drawings of exceptional finesse, where reality and imagination intertwine with perfect fluidity. It all begins with the tree: “The tree is the beginning of everything, and from this tree I mimic nature.”
At times, his universe leaves the page to take shape in sculpture – a tangible extension of his drawing, where body, nature, and moment come together once again.
In Arbre sentinelle, the artist’s third solo exhibition at the gallery, Mérelle turns his gaze to a vanishing place: the island of Oléron, a small islet off the Atlantic coast, where he spends summers with his family. Only the trees remain there, silent witnesses of a retreating landscape. The artist draws deep inspiration from it, as he does from the Loire landscapes that surround him daily, near Tours. The Loire, with its floods and ebbs, evokes for him a blank page to be filled. As he says (and repeats), “Water has the last word” – it always reclaims its rights, reminding us of both the fragility and permanence of the landscape.
Opposite – Danser, 2025
Exhibition runs through to November 29th, 2025
Keteleer Gallery
Pourbusstraat 3 – 5
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
