In September, the Brussels gallery Sorry We’re Closed is presenting BOLERO, a major new solo exhibition by Belgian artist Kristof Santy (b. 1987, Roeselare), unfolding across the gallery’s three floors.

Santy’s second solo exhibition at the gallery brings together an entirely new body of work, including paintings, drawings and — for the first time — three-dimensional works on copper plates. A new publication accompanying the exhibition will further explore Santy’s evolving practice and recent developments.

The title BOLERO refers to Maurice Ravel’s iconic musical composition: a hypnotic and repetitive structure that slowly intensifies through rhythm, accumulation and variation until reaching an overwhelming climax. The reference is central to Santy’s approach to painting. Much like Ravel’s composition, Santy’s works are not primarily driven by narrative or subject matter, but by rhythm, repetition, structure, colour and formal relationships. Images unfold gradually through variations in pattern, scale, texture and composition.

Santy’s paintings often depict familiar subjects — flowers, dishes, interiors, tools, vehicles or fragments of everyday life — yet the works ultimately operate beyond representation. What appears immediately recognizable slowly transforms into something more enigmatic and emotionally charged. Through flattened perspectives, geometric constructions, saturated colours and subtle shifts in repetition, ordinary objects become monumental presences.

Rooted in folk traditions, anonymous popular painting and the history of Belgian modernism, Santy’s work balances naïveté and sophistication, directness and ambiguity. Echoes of Jean Brusselmans, Ensor, Joseph Willaert and Magritte resonate in his work, alongside affinities with Giorgio de Chirico or Konrad Klapheck. Yet for Santy, it is never about reference or nostalgia, but about painting as a living space for thought.
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