Erik Chiafele: Available works

When we know that someone is looking at us, we behave accordingly. We strike a pose; our body is trying to compose itself in a certain way. Most portraits show us just that: a posing body. But what posture do we have when we are not being watched by others? And who are we when we are not aware of ourselves, or of our presence in a space? These questions form an important starting point for the painterly work of Erik Chiafele (Hasselt, 1980) and are a common thread in his solo exhibition in Everyday Gallery, Let the time come for hearts to fall in love.

The title for Chiafele's solo exhibition "Laat De Tijd Komen Dat Harten Verliefd Worden" (Let The Time Come That Hearts Fall In Love, 2022), is based on a few lines from a poem by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. In Chanson de la plus haute tour, Rimbaud sings about the loss of youth, but also the lack of life that comes from thoughtlessness. In his work Chiafele tries to capture this thoughtlessness in the many forms in which it expresses itself, hoping that the heart will fall in love again. His portraits depict sleeping people, deeply wrapped in sheets or in a sleeping bag, people in a coma or bedridden with a serious illness, sometimes even dead people and the mourners around them. Often these persons are introverted; not posing, but absorbed in life. More often it concerns the indirect manifestations of this situation: a lasagna left behind in a grandmother’s freezer after her death, or a bed that has just been slept in but is now empty.