To capture this unmistakable tension between order and disorder, Van Boxelaere experiments with large and small formats, with different types of paint, with rubber, epoxy and ink. But also with figuration and abstraction - her figurative and abstract works are different interpretations of the same world. Some situations can be articulated concretely, even require a literal statement; in others the silence speaks.
Van Boxelaere works in direct relation to her surroundings: the physical, pre-eminently urban, landscape, and the mental one. Due to the sometimes rigid administration that governs both areas, she discerns a certain detachment. In the hermetic system of everyday life, no one feels at home anymore; escaping from the restless noise, from the “laws and practical encumbrances”, is almost impossible. Mesmerized, Van Boxelaere observes the schizophrenic social systems and oppressive developments in densely populated, densely built Belgium. In her deeply felt canvases, she fillets the insane grid that was supposedly constructed to provide something to hold on to, but that turns out to be a submission hold. Sometimes she breaks open that oppressive framework, sometimes she cleans the rubble of the passing storm.
