Philémon Vanorlé

Born in Brussels in 1980 and died in May 2025 in Lille, Philémon Vanorlé created a unique body of work.

His artistic work reveals the comical and sometimes touching absurdity of forms, images, or vernacular objects gleaned from or introduced into everyday life. Wordplay, appropriation, displacement, and irreverence characterize his body of work, which is both poetic and critical. 

With a Ph. D. In visual arts (Paris 1), he worked under the banner of the Volatile Company he also designed sets for the theater. Philémon Vanorlé, moreover, collected amateur photographs—small postwar silver-gelatin prints—depicting men, women, and children posing in public spaces.