MARUANI MERCIER: inaugural show of South African artist Kate Gottgens

MARUANI MERCIER is proud to present Darkening Dusk, the inaugural solo exhibition of South African artist Kate Gottgens. Recognized for her haunting, dreamlike compositions, Gottgens crafts works that exist in a state of liminality—never fixed, always in flux, and at times elusive. Just as the fading light of dusk blurs the boundaries of day and night, her paintings evoke a sense of transition, where familiarity dissolves into something more fluid, open-ended, and mysterious.

Gottgens builds her work from a variety of sourced imagery— anonymous snapshots found at flea markets, family vacation photos, or fragments retrieved from the vast digital archive of the internet. Stripped of their original contexts, these images become the raw material for a process of reconstruction and transformation. This gives rise to landscapes that feel both intimate and unplaceable, imbued with an unsettling, cinematic tension. A feminist undercurrent runs through the works in Darkening Dusk, with Gottgens increasingly centering enigmatic female figures. 

Her paintings do not offer clear narratives but instead invite viewers to respond instinctively, as if recalling a dream just beyond their reach. Suspended between the past and present, beauty and disquiet, her work lingers in the spaces where certainty fades and something more enigmatic takes hold. Darkening Dusk invites viewers to enter a world where reality and memory, nature and self, are never fully defined.

Caption: Kate Gottgens, Summoned by the tides, 2025 oil on canvas, 150 x 110 cm

Gallery Brussels 
Drawing in Space
George Rickey