Michèle Schoonjans Gallery
Michèle Schoonjans Gallery
Michèle Schoonjans Gallery
Michèle Schoonjans Gallery
Michèle Schoonjans Gallery
To close the year 2025, the gallery presents Quiet Encounters, an exhibition bringing together two artists with distinctive universes: Andreas Senoner (Italy) and Sam Ballet (Belgium). Both explore, through different media — sculpture and drawing — the tension between presence and absence, the permanence of material and the fleeting nature of gesture. For Andreas Senoner, wood sculpture becomes a space of memory and metamorphosis. Precise yet meditative, his figures often appear fragmented, their faces erased, as if suspended in time. This embrace of incompleteness dissolves individuality in favour of a more universal humanity. The density of the wood, a material imbued with history, converses with the delicacy of feathers or natural elements, endowing his works with a quiet intensity and...
To close the year 2025, the gallery presents Quiet Encounters, an exhibition bringing together two artists with distinctive universes: Andreas Senoner (Italy) and Sam Ballet (Belgium). Both explore, through different media — sculpture and drawing — the tension between presence and absence, the permanence of material and the fleeting nature of gesture. For Andreas Senoner, wood sculpture becomes a space of memory and metamorphosis. Precise yet meditative, his figures often appear fragmented, their faces erased, as if suspended in time. This embrace of incompleteness dissolves individuality in favour of a more universal humanity. The density of the wood, a material imbued with history, converses with the delicacy of feathers or natural elements, endowing his works with a quiet intensity and a spiritual resonance. Sam Ballet, meanwhile, constructs with coloured pencil a world in which reality is tinged with imagination. His drawings, formally precise, reflect a sensitive observation of everyday life, where the human figure is rarely direct but suggested through a diffuse presence — a gesture, a light, an atmosphere. By refusing titles, the artist leaves his compositions open, inviting the viewer to project their own narrative. Placed side by side, the two universes reveal a dialogue of great subtlety: the density of wood responds to the lightness of line, the permanence of volume to the fragility of the trace. Both share an acute attention to material, a taste for the slowness of gesture, and an introspective approach to the passage of time. Quiet Encounters thus traces a shared territory — one of active contemplation, where silence becomes a space for listening and imagination. Between drawing and sculpture, absence and presence, Senoner and Ballet offer a suspended moment, a pause within the flow of the visible. Artistic Career of Andreas Senoner - (b. 1982, Bolzano, Italy), lives and works in Florence (I) Andreas Senoner began his artistic training at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence (2001–2006) and continued his studies at the Facultad de Bellas Artes San Carlos in Valencia, Spain (2003–2004). In 2006, he was awarded a scholarship to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (USA), where he further developed his sculptural practice and explored the relationship between material and space. Throughout his career, Senoner has developed an artistic language defined by wood sculpture and a particular attention to materiality and the presence of the body. His residencies at international institutions — from SAFFCA in Brussels (2024) to the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art in Iceland (2022), via KKV Luleå in Sweden (2021) and Palazzo Monti in Italy (2019) — testify to his desire to experiment and engage with diverse artistic contexts. These experiences have allowed him to combine formal exploration with cultural dialogue on an international scale. His work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include “Il corpo nel tempo” in Monopoli (2024), “Genesis” in Paris (2024), “Forget me not” at the Museo Ebraico in Bologna (2023), and “Transitory Bodies” at the Museo Francesco Messina in Milan (2021). He has also taken part in renowned group exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale (2011), “The Stand” in Monopoli (2022), and “Call of the Wild” in Paris (2023). These events reflect Senoner’s focus on the human dimension and timelessness in his work, as well as his ongoing dialogue between sculpture, drawing, and exhibition space. Over the course of his career, he has received several awards, including the Premio Cramum (2018), 3rd Prize at the Enegan Art Prize (2018), and the Premio Ora (2011 and 2013), demonstrating international recognition of his work. Today, Andreas Senoner continues to develop a unique practice in which wood becomes a medium of memory and poetry, and each work engages a sensitive dialogue between material, body, and viewer. His sculptures and drawings, imbued with subtlety and reflection, invite a contemplative and immersive experience, placing observation and imagination at the heart of the encounter with art. Artistic Career of Sam Ballet - (b. 1991, Herk-de-Stad, Belgium), lives and works in Paal (B) Sam Ballet graduated from the School of Arts in Ghent in 2015. From his first exhibitions, he has distinguished himself through precise and sensitive graphic work, exploring fragility and intimacy through drawing. He has participated in numerous national and international group exhibitions, ranging from Art on Paper in Brussels and Amsterdam to events in Scotland, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Notable collaborations and exhibitions include Enter the Void at Michèle Schoonjans Gallery (2023), Le paradis n’est pas artificiel in Tongeren (2016), as well as several Wintershow exhibitions at the Cecilia Jaime Gallery in Ghent. His solo exhibitions highlight his singularity and artistic maturity, notably Last Drawing Before Bedtime in Hasselt (2018) and Kunstenaar van de maand at Zebrastraat, Ghent (2015). Sam Ballet’s trajectory reveals an artist continually exploring colour, line, and graphic narrative, where each drawing invites the viewer into an intimate and contemplative universe.Opening Hours
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | 12:00 - 18:00 |
| Friday | 12:00 - 18:00 |
| Saturday | 12:00 - 18:00 |
| Sunday | Closed |
| ... and by appointment | |