Aesthetically pleasant and thoroughly researched, with "Unfilled Blues", the duo explores vital themes of self-definition. Across painterly elements and compositions made up of geometric spaces yet fluid lines, self-identification results in a tumultuous process that must overcome obstacles and barriers, mainly cultural, subtly referred to in paintings. Joined by the universality of their subject matters, Ethel Coppieters and Minjoo Kim draw inspiration from their daily surroundings, Brussels and London. 

Although inhabiting different stages of life, Coppieters and Kim share a common vision of womanhood that shine lights on many themes that stand the test of time. Primary feelings like friendship, affection, love, loss, motherhood, ambition, and a desire for social integration, sometimes conveyed through fashion, are addressed. The works presented are anecdotal, emblematic, compelling, and straightforward.

“I see inspiration right next me, I paint what I know.” - Ethel Coppieters. 

Ethel Coppieters’ (b.1996) figures appear as vernacular, made of the simplest elements of life, pure rosè flesh paired with some spare fashion element. Through different layers of visual lust, Coppieters’ figures chronicle nowadays young-adult women, bold and free to explore the unknown, experience the unseen, and eventually, make mistakes. She deals with ever-glowing topics in humanity, paying homage to the great Surrealist masters of art history. Inspiration is an element she finds nearby, her friends, people she holds dearly, the return of spring, the charming scent of summer, fast-paced fashion trends, and slow living in a dining room with hot smoking coffee.

“Unfilled Blue is a crucial part of my daily life that stays incomplete permanently. I am always living with a certain amount of anxiety, a status that keeps disturbing and stimulating me.” - Minjoo Kim. 

A collage collated from different worlds - existing and non - she paints new actualities, often imbued with a sense of agony and anxiety expressed via body language. Her oeuvre is an entanglement of different milieus, with references found in real life yet reframed in fantastical - at times surrealistic - scenarios. The women portrayed are always distant, close to a present absence, often gazing downward or elsewhere, immersed in reverie and possibilities, or indifferent to nearby happenings. Kim articulates the theme of adjusting to a new body’s forms, honouring the natural cycle of human metamorphosis as pregnancy and the residuum of it all.

"Unfilled Blues" is a tale of a blue momentum not filled, the turmoil of contradiction in oneself because of the ambivalence of all things in life. It is the unease and despair outgrowing elements with a positive impact on us too. It is the balancing between the perpetual inner argument and the inputs from the outer world. Something very human that strikes a chord in everyone alike.

The exhibition aims to talk to many and radiates a sense of mutual understanding, processed through empathy and emotional intelligence.