Uitstalling’s KUBE Gallery presents another beautiful solo exhibition by Lionel Smit, titled Refraction.
Drawing inspiration from Claude Monet’s Haystacks, Refraction examines how light—and time—reshape what we see. In Monet’s series, it wasn’t just the stacked hay; it was dawn and dusk, shadow and shimmer, decay and renewal. Here, a single oil portrait becomes our “haystack”—repeated, refracted, and reimagined through shifting hues of vibrant colour.
Each canvas is both distortion and revelation. Colour becomes filter and force—translating mood, cultural resonance and even our inner “weather.” As identity and perception grow ever more fluid—influenced by digital filters, cultural lenses and political currents—these portraits mirror our world’s fractured yet enduring quest for clarity.
Repetition here feels more ritual than redundant: it invites us to slow down, to discover nuance in every brushstroke. Just as Monet returned to the same haystack to reveal light’s transience, Refraction asks: How does one face transformation when the world around it shifts? What new truths emerge in chromatic excess or restraint? And ultimately, how many truths can coexist in a single gaze?
Refraction runs from 10 July to 27 September 2025 at KUBE Art Gallery in Genk. For more information about the exhibition, contact Danny Weckx at danny@uitstalling.com.
