When we first heard that Belgian architects Kersten Geers and David Van Severen were collaborating with the Kortrijk-born, Turin-based painter Pieter Vermeersch for an exhibition at Maniera Gallery, we became, we’ll admit, somewhat unreasonably excited. Our love for Vermeersch’s signature gradients is well-documented on this site, and, if you’ll recall, Office KGDVS’s angular furniture collection was what set off our love for the Brussels-based Maniera all the way back in 2014. The collaboration isn’t completely random, however; Vermeersch was recently invited to paint two cylindrical volumes on the roof of Office KGDVS’s Solo House II in Barcelona. But at Maniera, the aesthetics become even more intertwined: “It is difficult to trace exactly the primary authorship of each of the objects, whether they were developed by the artist or the architects, and this is probably the most striking thing about this exhibition. We do not look at two different positions in parallel, as often presented by MANIERA, but instead at a singular one where art and architecture have met and merged on absolutely equal terms.”

A curving, slatted room divider, for instance, has a soft peach and yellow gradient on one side and a high-gloss, mirrored finish on the reverse; a geometric, marble-topped table is decorated with a painterly wash. In perhaps our favorite piece in the exhibition, a tall cylindrical floor lamp is sheathed in reflective glass on one side and translucent on the other. A tiny but powerful exhibition, on view until May 4.

PHOTOS BY JEROEN VERRECHT