2026, Pietra Dura (stone-inlay), 24 cm x 15 cm x 1 cm.

Located along the Colorado River near Moab, the Potash Evaporation Ponds are vast industrial basins used to extract potassium chloride, an essential ingredient in agricultural fertilisers. Mineral-rich brine is pumped from deep underground into enormous, lined ponds, where the intense desert sun gradually evaporates the water over approximately 300 days, leaving behind potassium salts.

Seen from above, the ponds form striking geometric colour fields against the surrounding red-rock desert. Their vivid blue and turquoise hues contrast sharply with the natural colours of the landscape. The colours shift according to the season and the stage of the evaporation process. Beneath their almost surreal beauty lies an intensive industrial process that transforms the desert into a site of resource exploitation. The artificial ponds impose a new geometry on the landscape, exposing the tension between the extraction of resources for industrial agriculture and the environmental cost of reshaping and exploiting fragile ecosystems.

Installation view of Solastalgia, Salon Blanc, Ostend, 2026. Curated by Els Wuyts. © We Document Art.

Biography

Lola Prima Donna Daels °1990, Brussel (BE).
Member of Level Five, Brussels.

 

 

Lola Prima Donna Daels (b. 1990 in Jette, BE) is a Brussels based artist. Leaving from found objects, she poses critical inquiries about the ecological and socio-political situation. By reshaping and integrating her relics into new contexts she questions the concept of authenticity in our globalizing society. She has exponentially gravitated towards researching the human impact from an ecological preoccupation. She works site-specifically, both in research scope as well as in execution. 


Daels obtained her master degree in visual arts in 2014 at Luca School of Arts, Brussels. She has been part of several residency programs such as EKWC (NL), Kooshk recidency (IR) and Cité Internationale des Arts (FR). Her work was shown at Bozar (BE), Extracity Kunsthal (BE), Deegar Platform (IR), Art Sonje Center Seoul (KR) and many more.

Her interest in urban complexities led to the collaboration with architect and urbanist Sebastiaan Willemen. 

Upcoming

2026 
 

  • Contour Series #3: First Floor, Groendomein Vrijbroekpark, BE
    Vernissage June 5, 2026
    5 June – 30 August 2026
    Group Exhibition curated by Andrea Cinel.
     

  • Poets wederom Poets, De Nor, BE
    16 August 2026
    Group Exhibition curated by Dennis Tyfus
     

  • Found, Boekentoren Gent, BE
    Vernissage February 2, 2026
    3 – 27 February 2026
    Group Exhibition & the second part of the trilogy Lost and Found – Caring for What Is (about to disappear).
    The exhibition is curated by Tine Hens, author of Archief van mogelijk verlies (EPO, 2025).


     
  • Solo Exhibition, Salon Blanc Ostend, BE
    Vernissage October 24, 2026
    Solo Exhibition curated by Els Wuyts en Yves Velter.

Texts and publications

2025

  • Ruimte Magazine: Bomen & bossen, Meesterproef; Sociaal Wonen "Moederbos" P.67

  • A+ (306), Building for Culture, Sociaal Wonen P. 115.

  • Damn Magazine, KEIKOPPEN: A Radical Ode to Resilience and Reinvention

2024


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