In Tina Gillen’s (b. 1972, Luxembourg) paintings, the subject depicted is often reduced to its simplest elements. Her works present figurative worlds counterbalanced by abstract forms and the back-and-forth movement between these two dimensions wisely balances the great mastery of the pictorial vocabulary and a certain ‘letting go’ in the execution, a certain rigour in the composition and a more intuitive approach. Both surface and space compete for the viewer’s attention, resulting in a complex confusion, a charged atmosphere. The linear perspective appears abolished and the perception unsettled. The point of departure for her paintings is usually located in photographs stemming from various contexts – magazines, the Internet, postcards, etc. – which Gillen subjects to a process of reduction and abstraction: ‘I remove things in order to, paradoxically, reach a certain readability. I emphasize the abstraction by keeping just the strict minimum.’

Chasing Light (2018–19) depicts one of Tina GiIlen's (b. 1972, Luxembourg) favourite subjects, the architecture of private housing. Painted from a photograph of a modernist villa in a suburb of Brussels, the building is depicted in stormy conditions, sharply contrasting the sleek white surfaces of the architecture and its shadowy surroundings, highlighting the abstract quality of the structure.