Mireille Robbe

Mireille Robbe, born in 1962, shows the ingenuity of nature and makes us reflect on details that escape us by their apparent obviousness. Through her search for hidden symbols, she came across alchemy: an inexhaustible source of inspiration and information.

A kaleidoscope of experiences can be found in the works of Mireille Robbe: a range of life lessons, quests and explorations. A search for herself, be it through her suitcase in the painting studio of Maurice Van Saene in Sint-Lucas in Brussels, reading, intuition, ... A complex embroidery about the essence of life and death. About tangible things and magical imaginations. Her work shows us the ingenuity of creation, or of nature, which she relates to human psychology, and makes us think about details that escape us because they are so apparently self-evident. Just as the surrealists often started from a recognizable reality and on top of it evoked their own yet universally recognized mysticism and eroticism. Mireille Robbe's work questions individuation in a space to think (differently), translated into essential beauty.

Anthracologie series

Anthracology is a branch of archaeology based on the analysis and identification of charcoal based on wood anatomy that is perfectly preserved after carbonization.
The charcoal can come from archaeological sites or sediments, which allows the study to provide indications about the type of forests that used to exist and about human activities.

For the 3D images of this concept, Mireille Robbe was inspired by the microscope images of charcoal. To achieve this, she chose paper because, like charcoal, it has wood as its base material. The use of pages from old books gives a beautiful patina that symbolizes time, the past. Both charcoal and books tell a story. “Cabinet Anthracologique” shows us the rarities that the anthracologist wants to preserve and display in a precious way. In the drawings, the ink stains determine the pattern of the burned holes that are reminiscent of the charcoal structure. Another series of drawings was made on paper that was first burned, there is a black band of charcoal and the pencil circles determine the microscopic wood structure.