Why don’t you paint flowers?
A beloved friend of Werner Mannaers, Barbara Rose once asked him ‘Why don’t you paint flowers?, As days became weeks, this question found its way on one of his Marlboro paintings. But the question kept haunting him, resulting in becoming a floral journal, where ironic, humorous, erotic quotes and lyrics (When a moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie) or paper scraps are carefully placed and traced alongside the floral shapes and lines. This creates a hugely layered series - ongoing - and a love letter to the Barbara, that made him go on this vibrant and inexhaustable quest. Both the starting point - the painting and a selected anthology out of more than 400 floral works are present during La mort des amants, putting questions into motions and vice versa, one of Mannaers’ most defining aspects as an artist.