Joke Hansen: Innenbilder

In Joke Hansen’s practice, the continuous questioning of painting as a medium is central. Her works, including paintings, collages and sculptural canvases, consistently operate at the intersection of image and space. The starting point is always the canvas, which Hansen increasingly detaches from its traditional format. Her shaped canvases, for example, break the rectangular boundaries and introduce new, independent forms into space.

For her solo presentation at IKOB, Hansen developed an installation-based work for the first time, marking a new phase in her artistic practice. In "Innenbilder", she uses materials such as carpet, Styrofoam and fabric, which she layers, shapes and combines to transform painterly elements into walk-in structures. Hansen is interested in a play with boundaries. She invites viewers to engage with formal, physical and conceptual limits.

Her works are never static. They open up, break out, give way and push back. The space is not merely used but consciously composed. In Hansen’s work, color and form serve as structuring elements within a playful, self-developed system that is deliberately interrupted and questioned. Her installations function like levels in a game. It is not about winning but about continuing to play.

The site-specific installation is conceptualized as a spatial translation of Hansen’s first monograph Shifting Shapes, published by Oktober Publications. Shifting Shapes is available at the IKOB bookshop throughout the exhibition and will be officially launched at the finissage on 30th November.

With the support of Kunstwerkplaats Vonk and the Flemish Community.