Borrowing the opening line of ‘A personal poem’ from Frank O’Hara’s collection of ‘Lunch Poems’, Brussels based artist Felix De Clercq presents Only two charms in my pocket; a series of seven paintings, which akin to O’Hara’s writing practice that strikes a nonchalantly, idiomatic and observant tone, memoirs a tender engagement and earnest appreciation of his local surroundings. 

Weaving personal anecdotes and a candid coalescence of everyday errands, the two charms in question: an old Roman coin gifted by the Japanese-American painter Matsumi “Mike” Kanemitsu and a bolt-head from a packing case in Madrid, - O’Hara notes before visually documenting a stroll through New York City during his lunch break as curator at MoMA - are emblems that could easily find themselves amongst the everyday objects De Clercq often takes as subject matter. 

Where no one motif accrues any significance over another, each painting, rendered by the modest aesthetic of gouache arouses a lingering reminiscence, bathed in an afternoon light offering an almost sepia veneer, harmonises with the contextual temporality of the 1950s and 60s, curiously coinciding with the time period O’Hara’s ‘Lunch Poems’ were published. Assimilating subtle resonances that collide with sequential incongruity, Only two charms in my pocket, shapes a gentle enquiry into contemporary nostalgia, where both the past and present rub together, often sympathetically, to reveal the complex vulnerabilities inherent to the wistfulness of associative memory embedded within the human psyche. 

There is an oscillation, however, between the tentative obscurity the hazy wave of nostalgia evokes, and a poignancy that punctuates and imbues the subjects with critical significance. Conjuring a pause or sense of preservation, wrought by detail orientation and a carefully considered execution, the quiet intensity of the still lifes appear to mark a definitive moment in history, casting daily observations into moments of baring witness. 

Akin to a meticulously recorded crime scene whereby forensic investigators follow systemic protocols to conserve the integrity of evidence, De Clercq adopts a similar analytical and engineered approach to articulate perspective, enacting a slow archival process by deconstructing digital images of the environments and object incurred compositions he paints. Summoned to the immediate past of photographic conception, engaging with a temporal discrepancy that circumvents the incitement of nostalgia the paintings aestheticise, echoes the prevention of unauthorised entry enabled at incident locations, established by a boundary corresponding to the protective perimeter of the frames securing the paintings themselves. 

Yet void of event and disarmingly lucid, there’s no clue to discover nor metaphor to decipher. By eclipsing the symbolic and refuting rendition, the denial of closure imparted by the exhibition is analogously tied to the painter’s meandering, and how the surroundings he frequents are exposed to a variety of happenings.

If De Clercq’s sincere consideration of the tangible environments we inhabit serves as an antithetical anecdote to the hyper virtually rendered images from which he conducts his conveyance, then the manipulation of reality by advanced technology functions similarly to the retroactive workings of nostalgia that guise initially experienced sensations.

Alongside napkins and scraps of paper, O’Hara utilised the mechanical apparatus of the typewriter, a quaint, outdated version of the contemporary computer to record his observations. Referencing the classic hallmark of the wristwatch De Clercq depicts in the exhibition, both artist and writer self referentially acknowledge the time emancipated to contemplate and cherish a chronicling of their respective cities. O’Hara once remarked he could use the telephone to communicate his musings instead of writing a poem, which like the typewriter and wristwatch, adopt qualities of memorabilia the intimate scale of De Clercq’s paintings evoke; collecting and archiving his whereabouts, Only two charms in my pocket, serves as a postcard delivered from his beloved neighbourhood: wish you were here x