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In the video installation Unreleased (Shooting) (2002), delicate watercolors are animated so that they flicker in semiabstract patterns; it takes a moment or two to realize that this dreamy animation in fact depicts the thrashing about of a wounded person.

The Brussels-based duo gave the title “Sonia Versace” to their 2005 exhibition at Kuttner Siebert Galerie in Berlin. Each large-scale painting there featured the words of the title; with that constant, the duo explored a range of styles and moods that, in concert with the absurd made-up moniker and its fashion-world connotations, imparted complex messages about layers of authenticity, superficiality and the ephemeral.

Fashion recurs in the duo’s work as a caustic reference to the ever-changing fortunes of painting (as well as to the fickle fate bestowed on contemporary artists).

“Perry-ism,” their 2005 exhibition of drawings, paintings, sculpture and film at Nosbaum & Reding Art Contemporain, in Luxembourg, focused on the laurelwreath logo of the Fred Perry sportswear company, an icon with a schizoid symbology, being both an emblem of victory and glory and having funereal overtones. This sense of duality mirrors that of the work’s creation by a collaborative pair.

Playing with identities personal and corporate, Bouvy and Gillis seek not to create an artworld brand but instead to explore myriad and conflicting points of view. Ultimately their work hinges on—indeed its humanity flows from—its refusal to cohere.

"Introducing—Aline Bouvy & John Gillis" originally appeared in the December 2006 issue of Modern Painters magazine.