The Road Not Taken
04/04/2026 - 14/05/2026
The exhibition takes its title from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, a poem that evokes the choice of a walker deciding to take one of two paths and to leave “the other” behind.
This reference points to walking, less as a metaphorical retrospective on the impact of our choices than as an attempt to recreate the experience of a solitary walker. The viewer wanders through the eyes of the artist in the surroundings that nourish his imagination.
In the intimacy and silence of contemplation, Charles-Henry Sommelette presents a landscape imagery that functions like a déjà-vu. The visual and emotional appeal of his works draws on what might be defined as a “collective memory.” These typical scenes of the Belgian countryside are engraved in our memory like recollections: moments glimpsed during an excursion or quickly seen from the window of a car or a train carriage.
This approach makes us both the spectators and the protagonists of these works. We observe these landscapes and are struck by the strange relationship of a natural environment altered by human action without showing its actors. Human presence “disturbs” the landscape.
Through this staging, the artist entrusts the viewer with part of the narrative power of his paintings and invites us to wonder: what happened?
Sommelette Charles-Henry