BRUSSELS.- Stephan Goldrajch has always been inspired by ancestral traditions, rites, and techniques used by craftsmen. His practice draws on the codes of life and learning, magic, tales, and legends. His amalgamation of inspirations includes those often- irrational elements that form part of the human learning process, reinventing them all.
Often using a crochet hook and various colourful threads of wool and cotton, Goldrajch meticulously assembles his sculptures and wall pieces. For him, the act of assembling coloured threads offers an opportunity to disconnect from external stimuli and enter a private bubble. The process of creating through crochet becomes a ritual in itself. The result is a collection of talismans born from a long, ritualistic, and meditative process, consisting of complex compositions teeming with colour and texture.
His crochet and weaving practice frequently takes a social dimension, resulting in participatory textile performances where social interaction is key. In this way, his work also reflects the delicate and specific social interactions we weave interpersonally, as well as the relationship between our social world and contemporary art.
In the past, this led to self-created legends that forged bonds and relationships between communities and local social figures. In Namur (Belgium), he created the legend of the Bomel Elephant, which was displayed at the African Museum of Namur in 2018. A few years earlier, at the Wiels Museum in Brussels (Belgium), he invented the Legend of the Canal, a story involving residents from both sides of the canal that separates the working-class Molenbeek district from the shopping and office district across the water, leading towards the city centre. The hundreds of flags raised after several months of work underscored the potential and the necessity of building bridges between two very different socio-cultural realities.
For ‘Devenir Yokaï,’ Stephan Goldrajch dives once again into legends and folktales. During his residency in Japan in 2023, he became acquainted with the Yokaï, a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. Yokaï often have animal-like characteristics and range from malevolent or mischievous to benevolent towards humans. New Yokaï continue to emerge, born from folktales and pure imagination. Elements of Yokaï tales have been depicted in public entertainment, Japanese art, and today’s manga industry.
His introduction to Yokaï provided the perfect pathway to his new solo exhibition, which brings together his well-known textile installations and sculptures with watercolour paintings made during his stay in Japan. The imaginary world that Stephan Goldrajch invites us into, much like his earlier work, is populated by small textile creatures and vegetation. Rich in fantasy, it joyfully takes us on a journey into our past, evoking the drawings we made and the games we played as children.
Stephan Goldrajch (b. 1985, Ramat Gan, IL) lives and works in Brussel (BE). He studied at La Cambra (Brussels) and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (Jerusalem, IL). ‘Devenir Yokaï’ is his third solo exhibition with Baronian. He also exhibited at and collaborated with WIELS (Brussels), Centrale for contemporary art (Brussels), EMST (Athens, GR), Xippas (Paris, FR), La Musée d’Ixelles (Brussels), Haifa Museum of Art (Haifa, IL), Tanzmesse (Düsseldorf, DE) and the Kaoshing Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan, TW), among others.
