Did Paradise Ever Exist?
In his exhibition “Artificial Paradise” at Antwerp’s Gallery Fifty One, artist Bruno Roels invites viewers to reconsider what paradise means to them, where the concept originates, and how its significance has evolved throughout history.
By Gaia Squarci. Photographs by Bruno Roels.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s essay Les Paradis Artificiels (1860), which explores the relationship between substances and creativity, raising questions about the nature of inspiration and ecstasy. Roels also interrogates the idea of paradise as a mythical or lost place: an Eden referenced in ancient texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, later echoed in idealized visions of destinations fabricated by tourism.
For Roels, paradise is not a physical location but a moment of creation. Beginning with recurring motifs evoking a blissful yet undefined exotic landscape, he intervenes directly on the image by coloring the surface, bending or cutting the paper, multiplying perspectives. In doing so, he disrupts the integrity of the image, breaking any residual illusion of realism and creating a distance that asserts his point: paradise is not found, it is made.
The exhibition “Artificial Paradise” is on view at Gallery Fifty One in Antwerp, Belgium, until February 21, 2026.
