M

Mare, 2022
M-Leuven

Tom Hallet

Mare

28.07 -> 31.07

Tom Hallet (born 1990 in Leuven) is an artist, sculptor and storyteller. Hallet creates poetic scenes that can be read in a variety of ways, mainly inspired by mythology, family chronicles and literature. He examines social constructions as well as history and attempts to use visual art to introduce an inclusive narrative.

Over the past five months, Hallet was the M-resident and, in this room, the artist presents the work he developed during the residency. The presentation has been given the title 'Mare', a word with many meanings. In English, it is a female horse but you can also read it as the French word mère: mother. It also refers to a pond and a story. These four themes are central to Hallet's work.

From the Gilgamesh epic – one of the oldest literary works in history – Hallet learned about Silili, a divine mother figure associated with horses but later disappeared from history. Hallet approaches the mare as the vanished primeval mother. The creature that gives life and also controls the life of his brother, who is a jockey. The horse serves as a leitmotif in Mare and appears in various forms: drawings of cut-outs of horse bodies and a canopy interwoven with horsehair.

Detailed landscapes in which bodies and unfamiliar forms merge with nature can be seen in Hallet's drawings. Whereas some drawings consist of soft, fine lines, in others Hallet experiments by applying graphite – layer upon layer – until the black paper reflects like a mirror. Around the edges of a pond, figures look down on the viewer with piercing eyes, with the viewer finding themselves, as it were, with their nose just above the surface of the water. Hermaphroditus’ story is central here: the water nymph Salmacis who merged with her lover to become a hermaphrodite.

The same motifs echo across all the works: lines against a black background become the threads in the hands of a nymph, flowers at the water's edge appear as abstract forms in other works. At first sight, frivolous scenes reveal their dark side to those who spend long enough looking at the work. This play between the work and the viewer is typical for Hallet.

In the sculpture 'The Creation of Birds (An Ode to Remedios Varo)', Hallet refers to the drawing board – an indispensable object for the artist – from the painting 'The Creation of Birds' by surrealist artist Remedios Varo (1908-1963). In the painting, birds come alive on a drawing board. Hallet presents a similar scene: a dried-up bird under glass waiting for new life.

During the residency, we invited Hallet to explore M's collection. Hallet became fascinated by two prehistoric grinding stones, which in this presentation enter into dialogue with Hallet's own stone works, in which grain-like elements and details from the drawings are engraved. By introducing a prehistoric object into the presentation, Hallet wants to connect two worlds: the material reality and the world that man creates around himself as a way to relate to that reality, consisting of stories, mythology and art.

Every evening during M-IDZOMER, the presentation comes alive with a performance by violinist Victor Guaita and dancer Jacob Storer. Through movement and improvisation, the performers respond to Hallet's installation and challenge the viewer to look at the presentation with a different perspective.