For the 2025 edition of Art Brussels, Newchild is pleased to present a solo project featuring new works by Andrew Sendor. The artist is most recognized for his extraordinary facility in representational painting that serves to illuminate his ongoing engagement with the power of the imagination.
Sendor’s innovative approach to art-making synthesizes the language of painting with the fabrication of imagined realms. Each body of work begins with the development of a fictional narrative, centered around a constellation of characters and a recounting of their lived experiences. These labyrinthine stories are then brought to life through a series of performative tableaux, realized with the participation of actors, tailor-made costumes, and carefully orchestrated staging. This performative phase is meticulously documented, serving as a foundational reference for the final paintings. In translating the ephemeral nature of live action into the permanence of painted form, Sendor’s works emerge as evocative portrayals of human dramas that inhabit the space between reality and fiction.
The presentation at Art Brussels features Sendor’s signature monochromatic compositions situated in artist’s frames along with new developments. In one freshly created painting, he renders a contemporary version of a seascape which references a pivotal moment in the narrative whose title reflects this.
As observed by writer Reilly Davidson, “Sendor doesn’t shy away from the rich history of painting. For instance, ‘Salome and Apollo look to the sea, breathe the salty air and become absorbed by the coastal atmosphere’ draws upon a Cubist philosophy through its fractured oceanic perspective. This painting also taps into the sea dramas of Gustave Courbet, as well as Caspar David Friedrich’s pursuit in painting nature as a platform for profound spiritual experience.”
The design of Newchild’s booth has been conceived in tandem with the internal workings of Sendor’s fictional world and aesthetic concerns. The presentation will feature walls clad in dark plaster and a black fabric ceiling, intentionally transforming the typical fair environment into an immersive, introspective space. Visitors will enter not merely a booth, but an alternate realm—one that mirrors the atmospheric depth and psychological charge of Sendor’s paintings, inviting a slower pace compared to the typical high-speed activity of an art fair.
Davidson further elaborates on Sendor’s idiosyncratic artistic output: “These latest works are the perfect encapsulation of Sendor’s ongoing pursuits... between narrative drama and confronting painting’s inescapable histories. Each work is a manifestation of the narrative’s emotional and psychological layers, celebrating and interrogating the nature of representation in equal measure.”
