"Rooted in the still life tradition, Bassens embraces the genre's inherent contradiction-its hopeless attempt to fix life, to hold time still. Yet, as she points out, life does not stay still. From this paradox stem themes of impermanence, memory, and mortality. The paintings in VACANT depict sparse, actorless scenes: a deflating balloon, a table set for no one, the interior of an empty car. These are sets from which the subjects have just departed-or perhaps never arrived."
"The soft, milky hues and chemical unpredictability of instant film tie the series together through the color and abstracted quality of the image. The flash often obliterates detail, leaving behind voids of information-gaps that mirror the emotional and narrative ambiguity within the paintings. This lack of specificity allows the viewer to enter the work with their own projections and memories, transforming each image into a mirror of subjective experience."
Aglaé Bassens presents paintings of sparse, actorless scenes—deflating balloons, empty tables, and vacant car interiors—that make absence the focal subject. The works derive exclusively from the artist’s Polaroid photographs, using the film’s milky hues and chemical unpredictability to generate color and abstraction. Flash-lit voids erase detail and create narrative gaps that invite personal projection. Bassens’ process uses thin oil washes and visible canvas to allow images to materialize gradually, echoing the Polaroid’s slow emergence. Themes of impermanence, memory, and mortality are foregrounded as viewers confront the emotional charge of spaces left behind.
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