Threads of Being: Textiles, Time and Transformation brings together artists whose practices are grounded in attentive, durational modes of making. Across painting, sculpture and installation, they explore how repetition, accumulation and material sensitivity allow making to become a form of thinking, revealing connections between time, memory, and presence. Rather than approaching textiles as a medium alone, the exhibition treats textile-related processes as conceptual frameworks through which rhythm, labour and transformation are traced, and where surfaces become active sites of encounter.

In this context, the works gathered here share a commitment to sustained attention and careful engagement, privileging slowness and continuity over immediacy or spectacle. Materials are never neutral: they carry histories, cultural memory, and temporal experience, and surfaces become spaces where gesture meets structure, intuition meets discipline, and intimacy meets abstraction. Through these modes of making, the exhibition investigates how material forms can embody thought, memory, and time.

Sopheap Pich (b. 1971, Battambang, Cambodia) is one of the most celebrated contemporary artists in Southeast Asia. Pich is known for creating timeless, minimalist sculptures and wall reliefs using regionally ubiquitous materials such as bamboo, rattan, and aluminium. "Materials hold infinite possibilities," Pich says, placing absolute trust in the power of materiality to convey social and political histories, collective traumas, or personal memories that Cambodians experienced during the radical era under the Khmer Rouge. Through his painstaking and labor-intensive process, Pich’s artistic practice serves as a fundamental act of connecting the past, present, and future.

Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present a solo presentation by Ida Barbarigo (1920- 2018), featuring a selection of rarely-seen works from the mid-1950s, 1960s. During these two decades, the paintings illustrate the evolution in her approach to abstraction: from very formal and geometric to a much more lyrical visual language that is completely her own. Barbarigo’s chair paintings transform simple objects into haunting symbols of presence and absence, using repetition, distortion, and atmospheric space to evoke psychological tension rather than depict literal furniture.

Axel Vervoordt Gallery represents artists and estates from around the world, combining contemporary creation with historical legacy as part of a continuum of artistic practice. Founded in Antwerp in 2011 by Boris Vervoordt, the gallery engages deeply with artists and estates, guiding their work with long-term care and responsibility. Its approach is defined by curatorial rigor and vision, cultivating dialogue across mediums and eras and presenting immersive exhibitions that allow art to be experienced fully. The gallery’s artists create work that encourages reflection on how we relate to the world and demonstrates the capacity of art to foster understanding and positive change. In 2014, the gallery expanded with a permanent space in Hong Kong, reflecting its global perspective and strengthening connections between East and West.

Representing over 30 artists and estates, Axel Vervoordt Gallery occupies a distinctive position in the art world, offering a platform where contemporary practice and the preservation of significant artistic contributions engage in meaningful exchange. Through thoughtfully curated exhibitions and publications, the gallery balances innovation and continuity, creating a space where art is both deeply engaged with the present and responsibly preserved for the future.

During Antwerp Art Weekend, Axel Vervoordt Gallery will be open from Thursday until Saturday from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.