In the 1990s, Éric Bassleer, alias Mon Colonel (born in Liège in 1974), and Thomas Stiernon, alias Spit (born in Liège in 1977), were active as graffiti artists within the Liège-based collective “The ERS”.

In 2007, following the dissolution of the group, the Belgian duo came together as Mon Colonel & Spit. Their artistic practice unfolds across numerous media such as drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics. Most of the time, works produced through these different techniques are brought together in the form of installations. These installations reflect their world, shaped by everyday references, comics, and popular and urban cultures, all steeped in a joyful naivety infused with irony, humour and irreverence.

In 2015, the duo was awarded the Commission des Arts de Wallonie Prize for a series of glazed earthenware pieces covered with text and drawings reminiscent of their works on paper. They then began studying under ceramic artists Dominique Matagne and Gilette Fosty.

In 2017, Mon Colonel & Spit exhibited for the first time at the MIMA museum in Brussels, presenting sculptures as well as a whole series of ceramic artefacts. This installation, titled “Show non merci”, is the crystallisation of 40 years of life, artistic sensitivity, memories, experiences and encounters that have made them artists. The exhibition became a genuine turning point in their practice, as ceramics came to occupy an almost exclusive place.

“Their work, filled with a wild and fertile poetic density, simply needed to be faithfully transcribed in order to share what the artists had to reveal about their exploration of ceramics and the sources of their creativity. This approach, although fairly academic, proved delicate, all the more so as Eric and Thomas’s sculptures are often tinged with lightness, illustrating their propensity to have fun and to laugh.” – R. Cruyt