NICOLAS LAMBELET COLEMAN

Nicolas Lambelet Coleman, What Would You Like to Be for Dinner ?

EDJI Gallery is pleased to announce an upcoming solo exhibition with Swiss-American artist Nicolas Lambelet Coleman.

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“A meal is not something to get through. A meal is life, lived together, exchanged and remembered.” – Laurie Colwin

Born in 1998 in North Carolina to a Swiss mother and an African American father, Coleman has long used painting to explore identity and representation. His work blends self-portraiture with scenes drawn from everyday life, often set in intimate interiors. Inspired by Henry Taylor and Alice Neel, he creates a painterly world that balances tenderness with a quiet melancholy.

In this new body of work, Coleman explores the emotional and cultural weight of the shared meal. Each painting invites us to take a seat across from the artist, where he appears not just as a subject, but as a quiet narrator. 

The title What Would You Like to Be for Dinner? turns a familiar phrase into something more open and personal. Instead of asking what you’d like to eat, it asks who you’d like to be. The shift points to how a meal is never just a meal but also a way of reflecting on identity, desire, and how people connect across cultures.

This series draws on his recent travels through the United States, Japan, or France. These experiences shaped his understanding of meals as moments of intimacy and cultural transmission. In his paintings, tables are set in a range of settings, from roadside diners to private homes. Architecture, fabric, ceramics, and light all speak of specific places and memories. Yet the feeling is universal.

Some paintings feature the artist himself, at times in company. In others, the figures drop away, replaced by close-ups of tableware and food. These frames tighten around the meal, drawing attention to the act of sharing it. Light, fabric, and architecture signal specific locations, but what stays is the sense of intimacy.

Nicolas Coleman paints from experience but never simply documents. His practice is a form of reinvention. He blends memory, imagination, and symbolism to create scenes that feel both familiar and constructed. 

Each painting in the exhibition bears the name of the place where the meal took place. Despite the distances between them, the feeling is consistent. Someone is remembered. Something is shared. Here, Coleman offers not just a portrait of himself, but of the fragile and beautiful act of sitting down together around a meal.

MEET THE ARTIST

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Opening Preview: Thursday, September 4, 2025, 6–9 PM, 15 rue du Page, Brussels

For Rendez Vous Brussels (Brussels Art Week)

Inquiries : hello@edjigallery.com