Selected Artists 2025

Bart Ardijns 

Bart Ardijns is a contemporary painter who explores the language of abstraction through movement, intuition, and material expression. His work unfolds in layered gestures, with each brushstroke as an instinctive response and each surface shaped by color, texture, and the pulse of motion. At the core of Ardijns’ practice lies a fascination with dynamic tension. Lines surge across the canvas in diagonal rhythms, carving out space with urgency and grace. These movements do not follow a fixed plan; instead, they emerge from a deep trust in process, allowing spontaneity to lead. The result is a raw, immediate energy that vibrates beneath the surface. His textured brushwork adds weight and presence, revealing the hand behind the mark. Nothing in the work feels overly polished or controlled. Ardijns embraces imperfection as a form of authenticity. The roughness of the surface becomes part of the story, echoing the expressive force that drives the composition.
Color plays a vital role as well. It is not simply applied but experienced, handled with a sensitive awareness of contrast and harmony. Together, color and gesture create a visual rhythm that is both emotional and precise. Ardijns’ canvases are not static images but living fields of energy. They invite the viewer to move with them, to follow the gestures, to feel the underlying tension. Each piece becomes a quiet record of presence, a space where passion, chaos, and compositional clarity find balance in motion.

Lenon B

Lenon B, an artist of emotion and energy
Originally from Aix-en-Provence, France, and now based in the Lisbon region of Portugal, Lenon B is an artist dedicated to abstraction. Her works are much more than visual compositions, they are fragments of emotion and energy.
Each canvas is a constant search for color harmony, a silent dialogue with the viewer, an invitation to feel.
For Lenon B, art is not simply a visual spectacle, it's a sensory experience.
The colors, textures and light that emerge awaken unique emotions, sometimes inexplicable, but deeply rooted.
This invisible link between the work and the viewer transforms each painting into much more than an object; it becomes a tangible emotion, a visible transcription of what you feel, a shaping of the intangible, a part of yourself.
Recently recognized and quoted by an art expert, Lenon B continues on her path, her work constantly nourished by this quest for meaning and sharing. Her works are an invitation to encounter, exchange and emotion

Mireille Billen

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Willem Elias
Through intense contact with various artists, gallery owners, art lovers and art collectors, Mireille decided several years ago to devote herself fully to her ultimate dream.
The artist's life is not always easy but the calming influence of the sea, the new love in her life, long walks along the beach and bicycle rides through "het Zwin" have made Mireille even more creative and productive and her paintings have evolved greatly into larger and larger works

Lisa-Marie Billiet

Lisa-Marie Billiet is a Belgian, self-taught artist from Ruiselede. As an artist, she is driven by a deep need to translate emotions into visual art and thereby create a universal connection. For her, art is not just a way to paint, but a powerful means of communication to express feelings that are often difficult to put into words. By putting animals at the center of her work, she builds a bridge between man and nature, emphasizing the purity and vulnerability of emotions. Her paintings, often characterized by complex color combinations and vibrant backgrounds, are created with various techniques such as palette knives, brush, airbrush and paint splatters. This versatile approach allows her to achieve a unique layering and dynamism in her work.
Lisa-Marie draws her inspiration from the emotional depths of life, personal growth and the nature around her.She is also influenced by big names in the art world, such as Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and Peter Terrin. Through her art, she constantly seeks the boundaries between vulnerability and strength, stillness and expression, telling stories that touch without words.

Reinhold Booten

Reinhold Booten is a Belgian artist with a deeply rooted practice that spans several decades and disciplines. His artistic journey began in the 1980s with drawing, graffiti, and dance — forms that laid the foundation for his later work, in which movement, rhythm, and urban energy remain palpable.
As a self-taught creative pioneer, he evolved into a musician, performer, and eventually a visual artist. Today, Booten focuses on abstract painting, sculptural steel installations, street art, and murals. His work is visually powerful, layered, and unmistakably personal — a fusion of raw materials, emotional intensity, and years of artistic evolution.
Booten’s oeuvre speaks to both the instinct and intuition of the viewer. Each piece bears traces of his past in performance, music, and street culture, yet effortlessly transcends those roots to form a mature, fully realized visual language. His recent paintings are marked by a strong sense of composition, texture, and contrast, industrial in appearance, yet charged with internal motion. As an artist, Reinhold Booten moves independently of conventions or trends. His work is thoughtful, lived-in, and uncompromisingly authentic, a true voice within the contemporary Belgian art scene.

Marc Brees

Marc Brees’ compositions holding a certain surrealism and neighboring paths address the themes of life, love, nature and death. His universes are full of uncertainties but hope persists. The titles are often symbolic, in the form of charades, riddles. If they are sometimes biting it is only to denounce some human impostures. He is generally incisive in emphasizing, here and there, our passions, our dreams, our temporary or profound aberrations. He offers you a relevant vision of our daily life where humor is often dark but where hope persists. A refusal of all forms of authority, of dictates to free our minds, starting with his. Life, death, love, hate are his accomplices. The dream and the
imagination have taken over, thus diverting a tenuous reality by the sole play of his creative thought.
You are now ready to discover the neighboring paths of a certain Belgian surrealism! Any resemblance with your most unexpected dreams or your revolted convictions are painted on purpose. This means that you kept some human feelings, that you judge reasonably and that you still can dream like the angels, those who look after our emotions and our too often repressed feelings. He is neither looking for being pleased nor for conformity. Irony and caricatures are necessary to avoid the decadence of the humanity. Lets keep on daydreaming

Rita Busschots

After painting rather dark and mysterious paintings in the early 2000s, Rita Busschots (Antwerp-based artist) has recently embarked on a “new trend” that is more positive.
But the recipe has not changed: using art to comfort.
With her works, Rita always tries to tell a story, based on her emotions or those of others, such as joy, sadness, fear or revelation. She has always been fascinated by psychoanalysis it is a common thread in her art. She dives deep within herself to find these feelings.
Each work is a personal reflection. Rita believes deeply in the power of authenticity in art.
Painting gives her the same tranquility , freedom and inner peace as riding a motorcycle. It is therapy “It comforts”, art is healing. For Rita, a work of art should not only seduce, it should touch the soul to the core. Her favorite themes are personality traits .In other words: man and his emotions. Her works can be described as a mix of figurative and abstract art.
She works mainly with acrylic paint, mix of mixed media, collages of newspaper articles and magazine. She especially likes abstract figurative art, which allows everyone to interpret her works as they see fit. For Rita, art is a form of freedom that is essential.
After her last exhibition in 2024 on the theme “I am /Je suis,” Rita has started a new theme “Liberty.

Eleha Carenzal

Eleha Carenzal is a French medium painter, renowned in the field of contemporary art brut. Her deeply symbolic and vibrant work invites viewers to explore the invisible, navigating between light and shadow. Her artistic approach, imbued with spirituality, makes painting a bridge between the realms of heaven and earth.
Using noble materials such as pigments, marble powder, walnut stain and vegetable inks, Eleha creates works that transcend time and space, revealing parallel worlds and sacralized characters. Each creation is the fruit of a meditative process, where the interaction of colors and shapes gives rise to a symbolic representation of the present moment, in line with her mediumnity.
Her career has been marked by exhibitions in France and abroad, notably at Maison Rochegude in Albi, Chapelle des Dominicaines in Carcassonne, Brussels Art Fair, Monat Gallery in Madrid, the Venice Biennale at Palazzo Revedin, and Galerie Blanco in Colima, Mexico. These exhibitions testify to the growing recognition of his work on the contemporary art scene

Koenraad Casters

From a young age, Koenraad Casters has been passionate about colors and creativity. His career began as an interior painter, where he learned how colors can bring a space to life. Additionally, he was an avid scuba diver for many years, which gave him the opportunity to admire the vibrant fauna and flora underwater. His travels through South, Central, and North America, as well as his time living and working in the Caribbean, have further enriched his artistic vision. The intense colors of nature and culture inspired him to tell his own stories on canvas.
His painting career began when long-term medical issues forced him to shift his focus, and painting became his creative outlet.
His paintings stand out through the use of bold colors and the interplay of light. He often works with a dot technique, creating a 2D effect through subtle manipulation of light. His works take the viewer into a world full of color and joy. The influences of the underwater world and the vibrant Caribbean culture are clearly visible in his work, which is a mix of energy, happiness, and visual depth.
"Bringing color to everyday life."
With his paintings, he aims to celebrate the beauty and joy of color and convey positive energy to the viewer. By playing with light, shadow, and vibrant hues, he creates worlds that evoke a sense of happiness and wonder. His work invites people to reflect on the power of color and how it can enrich our lives, even in the simplest moments.

Jocelyn D'Amours

Jocelyn D'Amours is a self-taught painter renowned for his creativity and originality. His collections feature an inventive approach to painting: on paper / tracing film, sculptural paintings, swivels, miniatures... . Jardins Secrets and Tableaux Bijoux projects. In addition, his pictorial research has won four international prizes. Fourteen solo exhibitions, several group shows and several major contemporary art fairs, including “The Artist Project Toronto”.

Martine De Cremer

Mar10 (Martine De Cremer) is a Belgian artist who graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts in Aalst.
Her artistic voice is rooted in a deep appreciation for various styles, but her true passion lies in geometric abstract art. Influenced by visionaries such as Malevich and Kandinsky, she explores the intersection of structure and emotion with striking clarity.
As Kandinsky once said, “Everything starts with a point.” For Mar10, that point is imagination, a gateway through which the mind ventures into new, often unexpected, territories.
Her work often carries a playful undertone, a subtle touch of humor born from a desire to break free from life’s constraints. This whimsical edge adds a layer of warmth and relatability to her abstract language.
While her paintings speak for themselves, Mar10 welcomes the conversation they spark. She invites viewers to engage, interpret, and connect, each encounter becoming a shared journey

Harry de Dood

After Harry de Dood graduated from the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts (now Breitner Academy), and several years of sculpting, he gradually started to do more design and furniture making. he has been doing this successfully for many years now. Lately, however, he has begun to pay more attention to sculpting again and has turned to bronze casting. He finds this a great technique. It allows him to combine art and creativity with craftsmanship rooted in history. Harry performs all phases of the sculpting process himself: wax model, plaster mold, bronze casting and patination. The bronze sculptures are made using the lost-wax method.
The larger sculptures are cast by bronze foundry Atelier 80.
He makes mostly dogs. Dogs are quite unique in the sense that there is no other species of animal with such a variety of form within the species. The desires of dog owners and the willingness of breeders to fulfill them seem to know no bounds. Because of this, they are a great inspiration for his work. His dogs are often not very pleasant.
Dogs are an excessive form of nature, completely created by man. By making dogs with an extravagant form, he comments on the extreme breeds of dogs being bred today. But it is also, at the same time, his reaction to an overreaching model of social engineering in which man believes he can control everything without considering the consequences

Dimitri De Loecker

Dimitri De Loecker (DIM) was born in 1963 in Deurne (Antwerp). After completing his secondary education in the arts, he continued his studies at Leiden University (Netherlands), where he graduated in 1988 as a Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) archaeologist and completed his PhD in 2006. Dimitri has been (and still is) active both academically and commercially in the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Belgium. His research into the behavior of early hominins, such as Homo erectus and Neanderthals, has resulted in a series of scientific publications and books.
A Paleolithic archaeologist focuses, among other things, on unraveling palimpsests. A palimpsest, in archaeological terms, is essentially a complex word for a common phenomenon in which independent events (e.g., artifacts from different periods) come together (in the soil) and ultimately form a single visual whole. Filtering out different time units can indicate that certain conclusions are, by definition, incorrect and should be further investigated. People must be open to multiple conclusions, supported by (scientific) research … “nothing is simultaneous.” Palimpsest situations also frequently occur in visual arts and architecture (e.g., overpaintings and/or restorations).
Through collages, Dimitri aims to make the concept of palimpsest accessible to a wider audience. Playing with time units (e.g., clippings from magazines of different periods) and primary colors is, for him, a way of artistically engaging with a subject where science and visual art merge. The creations form compositions that are usually not predetermined and together create a new narrative. Through collage, the artist essentially creates a (surrealist) palimpsest. The materials used are mostly recycled, and the work of Frans Masereel is often a source of inspiration.
​

Rudi De Pauw

Living amidst the picturesque landscapes of Waterloo, Belgium, Rachino found a profound love for art that transcends borders and embraces the vivid hues of scenery around the globe. Though a beginner in the world of acrylic paintings, Rachino's artistic journey is rich with a passion for capturing the vibrancy of the world through color. Inspired by his travels across continents, Rachino infuses his canvases with the kaleidoscope of experiences encountered on his adventures. One of the most captivating aspects of Rachino's work is his ability to identify the extraordinary in the ordinary. Whether it's the peculiar shapes of unfamiliar fauna discovered in the rainforests of South America or the whimsical creatures that dance through the dreams of the imagination, his paintings breathe life into the fantastical and the real alike. In Rachino's world, colors dance in harmony, blending cultures and landscapes into a tapestry of beauty and wonder. His acrylic paintings are a celebration of diversity, a testament to the boundless creativity found in every corner of the Earth.

Jacques de Smet

Jacques de Smet paints, glues, heats, and works materials to create the textures of distant planets. Fascinated by the immensity of the universe, he imagines cosmic environments where celestial bodies evolve within a galaxy. What better setting than space to reconcile his dual personality: the rational earthling and the emotional artist. Born in Ghent, Jacques de Smet now lives in Brussels, where he was a businessman and art collector for many years before turning to art himself. He signs his works under the name Neptune, reflecting his duality, like the distant planet and the god of an earthly mythology.

Each of Neptune’s planets has a unique texture, defined by its composition and colors. An infinite number of stars and meteors surround them. In his paintings, Neptune conveys a sense of escape and vertigo. His compositions provoke reflection on the position of Earth, the solar system, and the Milky Way, which contains between 200 and 400 billion stars and likely over 100 billion planets. They express humanity’s existential anxiety, as we have pondered since the dawn of time whether we are alone in the universe

Yves De Vocht

Yves De Vocht (b. 1964, Antwerp) is a Belgian visual artist specialized in drawing, with a focus on ink, pencil, and mixed techniques. His practice combines graphic precision with pictorial sensitivity, drawing inspiration from historical aesthetics such as Gothic and Renaissance motifs, as well as world mythology and cultural symbolism.

Working predominantly in black and white, with restrained accents in red or gold, his art explores enduring themes: time, identity, ritual, and transformation. De Vocht is currently developing a coherent and distinctive body of work, grounded in tradition yet oriented toward international contemporary relevance.

Veerle De Vriendt

Honda Artprize 2025
Veerle De Vriendt “Photography is my language, light is my brush.”
As a photographer, she tells stories by playing with shapes and contrasts.
Veerle challenges the boundaries of photography by finding simplicity within complexity.
Her photographic work is often a reflection on the past and the present.
The choice between color and black and white acts as a visual representation of her emotions and state of mind. It symbolizes the interaction between vivid, warm memories and moments of melancholy, anxiety, remoteness,.... Thus, her emotional connection to the present and past becomes tangible.”

Karel Dendauw

Karel Dendauw combines his technical background with a passion for art. After training as a furniture maker and interior designer (Bijloke-Ghent), he continues to seek expression autodidactically. In addition to painting, Karel creates sculptures in concrete. His construction background translates into a raw style in which technique and artistic vision come together.
As a painter, he creates abstract works characterized by horizontal lines and deep layering. His paintings depict a horizon, not merely as a landscape element, but as a symbol of a goal, a point of attraction or a deep desire. They invite a journey of wonder: sometimes you lose yourself in them, but the horizon always offers a foothold. While you quickly recognize a landscape, a second look reveals that it is more abstract and eludes reality. His work plays with the boundary between recognition and abstraction, allowing each viewer to discover their own horizon.

Pascal Denègre

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hugo Brutin
​Pascal Denègre, trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels and La Cambre, he initially worked for many years in event and commercial decoration before devoding himself, for the past few years, almost exclusively to acrylic painting on canvas. Occasionally, he also practices watercolor and engraving.
His work revolves around various human subjects: old school pictures, sculptures, etc. These figures are often confronted with natural elements, primarily the sea and water. He uses disembodied colors, removed from reality, in order to draw attention to the attitude of these individuals and their outlook on our world.
Thus, the sower by Constantin Meunier inexorably sows with his feet in the water. Similarly, an old school picture by offering its gaze, invites us to imagine its vision of the future, our present.

Corah Dijkstra

Corah Dijkstra is a visual artist and photographer, she explores ways to convert noise into images. A relentless stream of sound in her head, combined with external noise—such as grinding, scouring, or running engines—creates a constant state of sensory chaos. Her images mark the beginning of a process in search of quietude. Through interventions like cropping, drawing, and the choice of paper on which the image is printed, she offers an experience akin to a landscape—an environment where she finds a sense of peace.
Yet, it is never truly quiet.

Caroline Dufoort

Caroline Dufoort is a Belgian painter from Bruges. Her mission as an artist is to create paintings that touch the soul, translating the invisible essence of emotion and energy onto canvas. She brings art for good - focusing not only on aesthetics or commercial success, but on creating a positive impact on mental well-being, inviting viewers to find a sense of healing through her work.
Her work is known for its radiant colors, organic flow, and swirling intensity. Inspired by the law of vibration, her paintings seem to pulse with life, as if they are in constant motion. Each piece becomes a visual journey through the subtle frequencies and energetic fields that surround and shape us.
Caroline draws deep inspiration from Sedona, Arizona, USA a place she often visits to reconnect with its sacred energy vortexes. These powerful sites, known to support healing and spiritual growth, fuel her introspective and intuitive approach to art. Her work also carries a distinct bohemian Ibiza spirit - passionate, free, and deeply connected to the unseen.

Joëlle Dulière

Joëlle Dulière, a Belgian painter and illustrator, has developed a unique style that flourishes on a variety of media. Her talent lies in her ability to transform an idea or concept into images, using brushes, pencils, or digital pens with equal ease. Convinced of the narrative power of a simple line, she creates artworks that tell intense and original stories.
Her paintings and illustrations offer an allegorical and sometimes caricatural vision of human nature. Joëlle constantly explores contrasts — whether in colors, patterns, lines, or curves — often adding a touch of humor. She infuses her characters with dynamic energy, making each scene vibrant and expressive.
Her playful approach and lively compositions invite the viewer to dive into a world where every detail matters.
Get ready to discover a visual world rich in contrasts and movement, where humor intertwines with the observation of the human condition.

Notes De Blue

.The mother-daughter duo Laurence and Cécile are presenting a new collection of cyanotypes at ArtistMeeting.
The interaction between light, water, wind and paper gives each piece a special vibrancy, where intention and chance intertwine to create a living imprint. Dreams and contemplation: a sensory experience
With their exhibition ‘L'écho des éléments : Cyanotypes and sensitive narratives’, they invite visitors on a journey between earth and sky, between rootedness and fluidity. Water, wind, light and shadows intertwine in compositions imbued with intuition and contemplation, offering a space to breathe and marvel. As a child, dreams were recounted in the early hours of the morning, like a family ritual in which the conscious and the unconscious merged. Today, it's the cyanotypes that become the receptacles for these inner visions, these fragments of suspended moments. A dialogue between anchoring and fluidity. Each cyanotype is an imprint, a fleeting trace of nature revealed by the light. Inspired by their walks and a deep connection to the elements, Laurence and Cécile let the moment guide their gestures.

Maria Eggenkemper

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hugo Brutin
​Maria Eggenkemper, an artist born in Dülmen, Germany, creates works characterized by raw power and emotional depth, resulting from the confrontation with the contrasts of her life: Vulnerability and strength
Having grown up in an environment shaped by tradition, Maria Eggenkemper found an expression for her individual experiences and her deep connection to nature in art.
In her sculptures, the sculptor processes her experiences and gives them a physical form that reflects the complexity of human experience and is a call for transformation. She creates spaces in which people can find themselves and tell their own stories.
Her works, made from materials such as stone, steel and wood, often carved with a chainsaw or an angle grinder, reflect the challenges of her life: the loss of loved ones, dealing with a serious illness and the struggle for recognition as an artist, wife and mother. Working with the material, which often pushes her to her physical limits, is an act of transformation. Maria Eggenkemper sees her art as a dialog with the viewer. She shares her own experiences and encourages others to accept their own challenges and grow from them. Her works invite viewers to reflect on their own vulnerability and find the strength to transform it into strength.

Samira El Bali

Samira El Bali (b 1979) is a Dutch abstract artist born in Utrecht. She is known for her large-scale, luxurious paintings with deep layers, often enriched with gold and powerful textures. Her work arises intuitively and reflects emotion, spirituality and inner transformation. Samira's style is recognisable by her bold use of colour, symbolism and ability to make the invisible tangible. Her works have been sold internationally, including in Dubai, Lebanon, Monaco, Portugal, Morocco, Italy and Paris. From her studio, she creates custom-made art that touches, connects and animates space.

Vincent Equipart

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Willem Elias
Maro (born in 1986) is a French abstract artist who creates complex compositions exploring themes of transcendence and emotional resonance. After his early years in graffiti art, Maro turned to abstract expressionism. His work uses a distinct visual language to evoke a shared narrative, inviting viewers on a journey of introspection. Maro’s artistic process is guided by the exploration of universal connection and the interaction of life’s energies.

Bertrand Florizoone

Bertrand Florizoone lives and works in De Panne, Belgium, where he and his wife Dine Maero focus on abstract painting. After a long career as an engineer and production expert in the industrial sector, Florizoone now focuses entirely on fine art. His engineering background provides a strong foundation for a body of work that brings together precision, rhythm and natural elements. His work is a fusion of technical precision and intuitive sensitivity to form, movement and structure. Using a self-built CNC system, which combines digital control and manual intervention, he develops a unique visual language. The paintings balance between order and organic expression, with a clear preference for color purity, linear precision and spatial harmony.

Valerie Frenkel

Valérie Frenkel is a contemporary artist whose magical world is sure to fill you with wonder and plunge you into a world of dreams and poetry. Her preferred medium is acrylic on linen canvas, but Valérie also transposes her world into 3D by creating stone sculptures or using other more unlike materials. Each work is associated with a message of hope and optimism that can be read while contemplating the painting or sculpture. To make her work even more sparkling, she often adds Swarovski crystals. Painting and jewelry come together to create a unique result. It’s a spectacle that can only be admired in person, as photos and videos can’t capture the sparkle.

Francis Geeroms

Francis Geeroms, born in Brussels in 1963, will only discover the passion for creation in himself as a young fifty-year-old. A few fleeting but promising trials of males. First imitations, then designs resulting from a fertile imagination. Somewhat later, he radically changes course and takes the path of horses. A clear choice for him, dictated by a personal story. The horse has accompanied him since his early childhood in his parents' riding school. When he is not walking around the stables or riding horses, he is drawing. And last but not least, he obtains a diploma of farrier. In short, he knows horses through and through.
And then life takes its course, no more room for horses until that return to his childhood sweetheart. No question of hobby for Francis but a nice leap from chance to passion. In August 2015 he creates his first work, far from all academies and teachers. Not only his surroundings are instantly impressed and full of admiration but also professional sculptors and his bronze caster are full of praise : he must continue.
His hyper-realistic approach rhymes with perfectionism, precision, care for the slightest/small detail. His artworks are the result of meticulous observation. He studies dozens even hundreds of documents. He sketches, photographs, films, measures, scrutinizes his models. He wants to pick up one particular pose, capture one movement, immortalize one unique split second.
​He strives to depict the horse in all its most remarkable qualities : strength, elegance, temperament, majesty.

Jean-Loup Ghekiere

JeanLoup Ghekiere (°1972) began his career as a logo and advertising painter, a craft in which he excelled. When the computer and printer threatened to supplant the traditional craft, he transformed himself into a versatile artist and retrained himself to master various techniques such as airbrush, screen printing, marble and wood imitation.
Ghekiere is an artist who paints with an astute attention to process, material and the fragile boundary between control and chance. His work unfolds a patient, almost meditative quest in which color, gloss and texture are not simply elements of form, but active carriers of meaning and experience.
Ghekieres works are abstract compositions with geometric shapes and optical illusions - a visual language in which color, texture and precision are central.
His rhythmic patterns, lines and subtle gradients of color create visual tension without being intrusive. Coincidence and controlled gesture find each other in a balance that is at once vulnerable and powerful.
Other paintings are composed of carefully applied layers. His works invite you to look, interpret and discover slowly and attentively. They reflect the dialogue between craftsmanship and playful chance within the creative process.

Katrien Goossens

Katrien's journey in the art world is self-discovery and the courage to step off the beaten path. She graduated as a teacher but took a different turn to the art world. As an artist using mixed materials she has carved her own path. Kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting pieces back together is the philosophical basis for her work where reflections of her dreams come back to life in the used materials, gems, paint, sequins and the gold-leaf. With her work, Katrien invites everyone to enter a world where visions and reality merge, where each creation is an invitation for deeper personal reflection and self-discovery.

Martine Houtsaeger

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Willem Elias
Based in Roeselare, mARTine is known for its sophisticated selection of contemporary artworks that combine emotion, color and character. During Art(ist)Meeting, mARTine will present an inspiring collection of paintings that straddles the line between expression and elegance. Specialization of mARTine Houtsaeger is the creation of custom art.
“The Art(ist)Meeting is an excellent opportunity to show our artists and vision to an art-loving audience in a prestigious context,” said Martine Houtsaeger, inspirer of the gallery mARTine.

Remigijus Januskevicius

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hugo Brutin
Remigijus Januskevicius (°1976) lives and works in Jonava, Lithuania, where he has maintained a deep connection with nature, everyday life, and the simple joys of existence since childhood. His artistic journey began early, attending the School of Arts for Children and later graduating from the Department of Painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts.
In his work, Remigijus seeks the essence of happiness: a moment of rest on a hill, working in the fields, listening to music, or simply enjoying a cup of tea. These seemingly simple experiences are transformed into universal images that resonate deeply. His art becomes an ode to life itself, to the beauty hidden in the everyday.
His characters, always faceless, could be any one of us. They celebrate life: flying, resting, working, swimming, or playing in the wild. A sense of longing for an original state of being recurs throughout his work, a harmony with the world, with others, and with oneself.
All of Remigijus’s paintings are executed in oil on canvas. After years of experimentation and exploration, he developed his own painting style by combining delicate glazes with thick, textured strokes, making full use of the unique qualities of oil paint. This results in works that are both refined and expressive.
The central theme of his work is the joy of life, which not only plays an aesthetic role but also serves a therapeutic function. His paintings invite the viewer to pause, reflect, and rediscover a connection with nature and the quiet richness of being.
His art is a silent reflection of inner harmony, the visual language of his soul.
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Jos Kennes

After many years of experience as a chef, Jos Kennes discovered a surprising outlet in painting. What began as a moment of relaxation after busy and stressful shifts evolved into a passion that is just as flavorful and expressive as his culinary creations.
At Artist Meeting, he presents a series of abstract paintings using the Pouring Technique, also known as Fluid Art: modified acrylic paint is poured onto a canvas and then manipulated to create vibrant patterns.
The result is full of color, energy, and emotion. Nature and human emotion are his main sources of inspiration, translated into canvases that surprise, uplift, and add character to any living or working space.
​Each painting is a unique creation that briefly takes the viewer out of the daily rush and immerses them in a world of color and wonder. Just as he brought flavor to the plate, Jos Kennes now brings visual flavors to the canvas.

Karen Ketels

Karen Ketels (°1981) is a Belgian photographer, based in
the Flemish Ardennes.
She is intrigued by silence and movements, time passing by, light, whites, minimalistic scenes, soft colors, natures
beauty, macro-details …
With her work she wants to make the unseen visible, to
evoke silence, and create minimalistic images with an extra touch of beauty.

Jean-Christian Knaff

Jean-Christian Knaff is a self-taught illustrator and painter. He established his studio in Montreal in 1982, obtained Canadian citizenship, and taught communication arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal. In 1984, he moved to London, UK, where he taught fourth-year illustration and visual arts at Kingston University.
In 1995, he became head of illustration at the Axe Sud design school in Marseille, France.
He currently lives and works in Valencia and Toronto, where he is an associate professor of illustration at OCAD University.
As a multidisciplinary artist, his paintings have been exhibited in numerous international galleries.
He expresses himself in freedom and culture, following the principles of a singular, expressive, and cultivated art. His expressions are not naive, we look at them, they grab us.

Beate Krummer

As a freelance artist and geographer (M.A., University of Freiburg), Beate Krummer creates abstract paintings using various techniques, which she regularly exhibits both nationally and internationally.
Her work can be well characterised by the artistic statement of the Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero: “The aim of art is not to depict reality,but the creation of a world of its own."
Inspired by her travels around the globe, Beate crafts her own unique world by incorporating sand and earth collected during her journeys into her paintings.
She works with natural materials that sustainably bridge the real world and her own imagined world, allowing them to develop their own dynamics within the painting: pigments, lime putty, marble powder, earth, coffee, oils, warm glues, tempera, and more.

Olivier Lamboray

Belgian surrealist painter Olivier Lamboray currently lives in Germany after spending some twenty years in Indonesia. Nourished by this place, his paintings bring Belgian surrealism back to life in his own way: blue, dreamy, poetic, positive, symbolic and intoxicating. Often compared to Magritte and Delvaux, his work reflects the same themes and inspiration love and celebration of the beauty of our country and its architecture.
"Painting is my journey" is a perfect way to describe him.
Surrealism is at the heart of Belgian culture, and from an early age he has been fascinated by the magical feeling of the surrealist dream. In his work, we find elements that are dear to our country: trams, stations, the shiny cobblestones of Brussels, art nouveau, Horta façades, all elements that highlight our cultural and architectural heritage.

Leo Lemmens

Leo Lemmens plays with perception: what initially appears purely abstract unfolds into stories and shapes that spark the imagination. His works first draw the viewer in with expressive brushstrokes and striking use of color, but upon closer inspection, they reveal
hidden realistic figures. As a quiet signature, he incorporates a subtle, concealed fork into each piece—a playful element that invites the viewer to metaphorically pin themselves to the canvas and discover the image’s hidden layers.

Oliver Lenaerts

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hilde Van Canneyt 
He works at the intersection of art and law—between image and language. He describes himself as a visual translator; his work is typically generated by legal language. What he creates opens a sea of associations and often elicits a smile. Humor and perspective are undeniably important to him. Word and image get along remarkably well in his practice, frequently coming together to produce entirely unexpected and original associations—a fusion that is often described as a "symbiosis."
He studied at the Royal Academy of Leuven, specializing in drawing.
Over the years, his body of work has evolved into conceptual art, characterized by conciseness and visual appeal. He aims to invite the viewer into a moment of reflection on the symbiosis between image and legal language—a reflection that requires reading between the lines.
​

Vasile Leondar

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Willem Elias
Both a painter and sculptor, Vasile Leondar shared his life and career between two welcoming countries: Romania and Belgium. Although settled in the heart of the West, he periodically returns to his hometown, where he seeks inspiration and a creative atmosphere.
There is no premeditation: the work is executed in the moment, proving that order and harmony can emerge from an apparently random composition made of stains, streaks, and splashes.
Attentive to contemporary art trends, Vasile Leondar fully embraces this abstract approach. The colors of his works are dense and contrasting, his brush wide, his strokes vibrant. He alternates the vigorous tones of blue, black, and red with more delicate shades of yellow and gray. The surface of his paintings evokes a battlefield emptied of its fighters, where the traces of an inner struggle that has just ended remain. Psychic tensions and emotional impulses are readable in the texture of each canvas. There is no predetermined meaning or hidden message; the viewer is free to add their own interpretation or simply enjoy the visual pleasure.

Jean-Pierre Letienne

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hilde Van Canneyt
​Jean-Pierre Letienne has been working for about 30 years on everything related to his two passions which are tattooing and art. 
His media are very broad ranging from collages, acrylics, watercolour, pastels, coffee and much more. 
About five years ago, he decided to exchange his permanent residence for a travelling existence. He went completely off-grid. Not an obvious choice but a very conscious and considered one! A leap to freedom, away from his comfort zone. A leap into the unknown that required him to do everything by himself and often alone, to be creative, but, above all, to grow into a different form of consciousness. In this way, he largely detached himself from the 'rules society' and thus acquired his own freedom. This is a necessity for him to be able to do what he wants: make art with a neutral view on people and society. Art born from an ever-active brain, fed by his daily experiences and responsibilities.

Arno Lindemann

For over three decades, Arnooo.ai—formerly known as Arno Lindemann—has shaped the creative landscape as a highly decorated Creative Director in the advertising industry in Germany. Now, he’s pioneering a new frontier at the intersection of art, graphic design, technology and human imagination.
Diving into Generative AI already years ago, arnooo.ai has since transformed digital art into a bespoke, deeply personal experience. His specialty? Tailor-made digital art—not just visuals, but conceptual masterpieces that align with a client’s space, brand, or personal aesthetic. From exclusive exhibitions to high-end commissions, his work has found homes in bars, restaurants, and private collections across Europe, with recent installations in Hamburg and Bern.
Blending his strategic advertising background with AI-driven artistry, Arnooo.ai doesn’t just create art—he codes emotions into pixels, designing immersive, location-specific visuals that feel organic yet futuristic. Whether it’s a bespoke digital mural for a boutique restaurant or a one-of-a-kind AI-generated piece for a collector’s loft, each work tells a unique, algorithmically enhanced story.

Marco Lopulalan

As a Moluccan boy of 18, Marco took his first steps in the crystal factory of Royal Leerdam Crystal. He grew up in the working class neighborhood of Leerdam, "behind the pipe" to be precise.
Lopulalan is like a fish out of water and quickly stands out on the shop floor for his creativity. He was allowed to train and eventually became a master glassblower. A title he wears with pride.
His drive stems from what the profession means to him. It took him about ten years to get the hang of it. Then came the moment he stepped over the threshold; he was gripped by the glass - compare it to falling in love. From then on, he developed a passion for the craft and does everything he can to grow that love.
Since 2020, Marco has started working for himself. Marco designs (with or without the customer) blows, but also finishes his own products in his cold shop in Leerdam. He makes objects. Both for commissioned customers and certainly also for our own collection. Key words: use of color, sleek shapes, mold-blown, the Leerdam school, so to speak.

Dine Maero

Art and form have always fascinated Dine Maero. From an early age, she felt drawn to image, movement, and structure. But it wasn’t until later in life that she discovered the deep sense of peace painting brings—a feeling of coming home, a way to give space to what stirs beneath the surface.
Under the name Dine Maero, she creates abstract paintings guided by feeling and intuition. Working primarily with acrylics, she allows color, texture, and the natural flow of materials to lead the way. Her work is organic and expressive—free movements through which emotion takes shape.
Dine Maero’s style is marked by marbled patterns and deep, earthy tones accented with fiery highlights. She never begins with a fixed idea; each piece is a spontaneous reflection of her inner world. Some paintings are soft and meditative, others bold and turbulent—mirroring the rhythms and contradictions of life itself.

Timothée Mahuzier

French artist Timothée Mahuzier will present a selection of recent paintings from his Verdure series, created outdoors in direct contact with plant life. Far from a depiction of landscape, Mahuzier’s work explores a painting of relation — one where forms settle, colors diffuse, and nature takes part in the making.
These canvases do not represent a subject. They register what happens — a flicker of light, a leaf’s imprint, a trace of moisture. The surface becomes a space of reception, sensitive to weather as much as to the artist’s gestures. The resulting image is not immediately given; it unfolds in the gaze, through shifts, projections, and instinctive recognition.
Mahuzier’s practice aligns with a grounded ecological approach: bio-based materials, short supply chains, minimal intervention. But it is above all in his relationship to the image that his commitment emerges — not demonstrative, but relational. A form of painting that does not explain, but lets appear.

Anne Mariën

Anne Mariën is a contemporary visual artist who finds inspiration in nature and creation: the origin of the universe and life. She is fascinated by microscopically small changes that occur in nature unnoticed, as well as by the formation of impressive mountains, the force of the oceans, and the magnificent infinity of the universe. The artist sources her creative energy from nature’s innate power; its colors, rhythm, patterns, matter, and its soothing quality and simplicity. Anne Mariën paints the unpaintable. 
Based in Mechelen (Antwerp Province, Belgium), Anne Mariën started her artist career in 2000. Gradually, she developed her signature-style artistic language. Several known artists guided Mariën on her path, including the bona fide painter and activist Frans Croes (1936 – 2011), and at the prestigious Academy of Mechelen; Rudy De Bièvre, Ann Nouwen, Marit Rombouts (1961 – 2023), and Stefan Annerel. 
Since 2000, Anne Mariën participates in solo and group exhibitions in prominent cultural institutions and commercial art galleries in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Monaco, France and Spain. In May 2023, the in-depth article “The unpaintable” was published in the New York-based Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.

Ann Massa

Ann Massa is a Belgian artist passionate about drawing and painting since a young age. Today, more than ever, she has the desire to beautify the world with beautiful colors and shapes.
“Color your life” is her motto, her need and goal!
Playing with shapes, lines, colors in an abstract style is what she is passionate about. Nature and the play of colors in nature is her greatest source of inspiration.
After a career in the advertising world, training at the Academy of Leuven in advertising art and other technical trainings in painting, it is mainly her joy and love for these colors and shapes that guide her brushes.
Since 2023, her creations have embarked on a journey through Europe with exhibitions in Liège, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, ​​Malaga, Monaco.

Nathalie Michiels

Natsa'muse is a trained psychologist who helps people feel better. There are heavy events over which we have no choice; so let's choose decorations in beautiful, bright colors that bring joy and light into our living spaces. She's convinced that surrounding ourselves with beautiful things, lively paintings and happy colors influences our vibration and has a positive effect on our mental health.
What's special about her paintings is that they have volume. She creates reliefs using different materials that give a sensation of depth. Depending on the angle from which we look, our vision of color and thickness changes. Often, the material extends beyond the edges, creating an effect of surprise and wonder.
Add color to your home, to see what's positive in life.

MirArt

MirArt (Miriam Giesen & Arthur Reuleaux): artworks and wall objects on a base of Beton Ciré, treated with paint and pigments, and framed in a sturdy steel frame. They are two passionate artists who create these works together. MirArt, formed from the first syllables of their first names, is the name under which they work, with “Art” serving a double function.
In both daily life and in their studio, they are a close-knit couple, passionate about art, design, and interiors. Together, they create large wall objects composed of a combination of Beton Ciré, paint, wood, steel, and paper. These works are characterized by organic shapes and minimal use of color. The Beton Ciré surface provides a beautiful relief that enhances the visual impact of the images. The wall objects are true eye-catchers in any interior.

Marc Noël

Marc Noël's Quantum Painting is a free and unrestricted expressive art that he created some time ago. The reason why he created this form of painting is to offer for those who desire it - through a brush, paint, and a canvas - the crystallization of "quantum" energy that becomes visible on a canvas.
The Quantum Paintings he creates also always consist of 2
aspects, and even 3 aspects :
The first aspect is that they offer the possibility for the
human beings to look at them and admire them in daylight
through their eyes.The second aspect is that these same paintings, once they welcome uv light, show themselves from a completely different angle and invite the viewer to immerse themselves in a magical universe.
The third aspect is that as soon as you turn off the lights, even the uv light, the canvas always remains visible for a few hours, illuminated in total darkness.

Rombout Oomen

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hilde Van Canneyt
Rombout Oomen lives and works in Amsterdam. His work exists on the edge of opposites. The compositions of his paintings are reminiscent of the Enlightenment, but the atmosphere within them is far from rational. The light in his work is not calm or clarifying, but blazing and dangerous.
The figures that populate his canvases seem to have entered the eighteenth century through the world of Jacques-Louis David. Perfumed, well-dressed, and refined, they appear to be attending a civilized, enlightened gathering. But in Oomen’s vision, they lose their way. What began as a graceful celebration slowly unravels into a bacchanal without escape. The characters end up possessed, exhausted, and stripped of illusion.
Oomen often works in series, such as his Slumberland Manifesto. He regularly chooses large formats, whether wall paintings, factory-sized canvases, or even the side of a skyscraper, like his swan on the A’DAM Tower by the river IJ in Amsterdam. His works may seem to call out, but the message is more ambiguous than it first appears.
Though expressive, his paintings are never noisy. For those who take the time to look more deeply, a quiet, poignant element emerges. In the darkest corners of his compositions, a romantic presence can be felt—a trace of longing, a hidden softness.
His art explores the tension between extremes: reason and emotion, elegance and chaos, joy and disillusionment. It reveals what remains when reason, love, and salvation have faded, leaving only worn-out desire and grotesque ideas. Yet in those fragments, moments of thrill and fleeting happiness still linger.
Oomen’s work invites the viewer into a world that is both seductive and unsettling, where beauty and collapse exist side by side.

Jimmy Pauli

Jimmy Pauli, born in 1966 in Bruges is a Belgian sculptor and interior designer. Currently he lives near to Brussels.
He started sculpting about 25 years ago because as he was fascinated by the fact that suddenly his ideas, which until then, had always been conceived in 2 dimensions (drawings) were suddenly filling the space and you could feel the material.        
Furthermore, during his first years of apprenticeship, he developed a huge fascination for abstracting the human body in many different ways. In doing so he is constantly experimenting to see how far a human body can be abstracted without losing its human aspect and become purely formal.   
As he created more and more sculptures, he also began to experiment with different materials that are rarely used in classical sculpture. As a result, he developed his unique way of working.  After a first sketch, his first preliminary studies are always made in modelling wax so that he can work on them in peace and without time constraints until the perfect shape appears.     
Then he can choose the medium on which he can enlarge the image or simply finish the study. They are cast in solid plaster moulds. The wax is melted out, then poured with a mixture of massive polyester and various additives depending on the final look he wants to achieve, bluestone, rust, metal, etc.
On top of that, after a few years of sculpting, he also started to make some sculpture more alive by creating multiple movement sculptures to create stop-motion movies.  

Golly Peeters

Golly Peeters is Belgium artists living in Brussels. After a corporate career, she discovered ceramics at the age of 45+.
When spending every childhood vacation on Belgium’s murky, sandy beaches—where the underwater world is hidden from view—Captain Cousteau was a household name. His captivating TV shows and magazine features gave her the glimpse she so deeply longed for, becoming the heartbeat of her maritime ceramic art.
Her detailed and colourful ceramics, crafted in paper clay or porcelain, capture a snapshot—real or imagined—of snorkeling expeditions in crystal-clear waters.  By applying ceramic pigments with a technique akin to classical watercolor painting, she masterfully evokes the shimmering underwater world.
She also creates more ceramic works inspired by classical still life paintings featuring marine animals. These sculptures pay homage to a traditional art form while celebrating the intricate beauty of sea life in a tactile medium.
Exclusive new work for this event.

Isabelle Petit

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hilde Van Canneyt
Isabelle Petit is a French artist living and working in Longny au Perche. She was born in 1968 in Benin, West Africa, a country known as the birthplace of voodoo. She spent her early years in Africa, surrounded by a culture rich in mystery, symbolism, and deep spiritual traditions. This African childhood left a lasting impact on her artistic sensibility, nurturing a strong connection to the unseen, the intuitive, and the dreamlike.Her work reflects this inner world through the blending of human figures and animals, the simplification of forms, and an expressive use of color. Her paintings are vibrant and emotional, inviting the viewer into a universe shaped by imagination, belief, and personal mythology. She draws inspiration from the power of ancient symbols and the beauty of transformation, building a space where the real and the imagined coexist.Originally trained as a graphic designer, Isabelle Petit eventually turned to painting as a more instinctive and liberating form of expression. She enjoys merging drawing with painting, allowing forms to emerge naturally from layers of color. This process gives her work a sense of spontaneity and movement, as if the images are discovered rather than constructed.Her artistic world is guided by dreams and stories, often abstract yet emotionally resonant. She creates pieces that are both mysterious and open, encouraging viewers to find their own meaning in what they see. Through her work, Isabelle Petit offers a poetic journey into a space where childhood memories, spiritual echoes, and visual exploration all come together in a rich and deeply personal language.

Sabine Pierick

Sabine Pierick is an internationally active visual artist whose works captivate through their extraordinary material language and depth of content. Her artistic drive stems from a profound engagement with themes of resource utilization, transformation, and appreciation—both in material and societal contexts.
From an early age, Sabine Pierick displayed a special sensitivity for forms, materials, and social issues. Her studies took her to Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Essen, and internationally to North Africa, Mexico, and Asia, where she learned techniques in ceramics, gold and silver smithing, lacquering, and sculpture. This diversity of techniques and cultural influences continues to shape her work to this day. A defining element of her works is the conscious use of unusual materials such as coal, pure copper, and petroleum. Coal in particular, which she processes through elaborate procedures, has become a powerful symbol for her: as a relic of industrialization, as a reflection of societal developments, and as a means of expression for existential themes. Sabine Pierick sees her art as an invitation to reflect on value, impermanence, and human aspiration. Her works challenge viewers to look more closely, to question, and to discover the hidden beauty in the original. Throughout her career, she has exhibited at various international art fairs and exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale 2024, as well as in Berlin, Frankfurt, London, and New York. For 2025, additional exhibitions are planned in Japan and China, which will carry her artistic concerns into the Asian cultural sphere. Her multi-layered and timeless works represent a fusion of informal expression and contemporary art, making visible current societal discourses, raising awareness for sustainability, and redefining the value of raw materials, traditions, and human creativity.

Dario Pilato

Dario Pilato is an Italian born in Belgium in 1992. He studied plastic, visual and spatial arts before devoting himself seriously to his creations. Since 2012, He’s been experimenting and developing his skills. In January of 2022 he finally decided to “go out there” and start showing his work to the public. Reviving vintage toys while giving them deeper meanings is his endeavor. His work is teeming with details in a naive, organic and colorful style reminiscent of free figuration and characterized by the repetition and the entanglement of mass-produced collectible children’s toys offered when purchasing something to attract the consumer. Apart from his desire to dive the spectator right back into childhood by reemerging all sorts of feelings, his work addresses different social and economic issues of our society. First prize or finalist in numerous international competitions, his work is now accessible in different galleries.

Ingrid Pollet

Ceramicist Ingrid Pollet explores the theme of “beyond the border / perfectly imperfect” in her latest work. She creates her own molds and works with pure cast porcelain, resulting in delicate forms that show perfection and fragility at the same time. By combining ceramics with taxidermy, she adds a layering that is both aesthetic and confrontational, evoking an intriguing tension between beauty and impermanence.
“I want to create a dialogue between the serene and the uncomfortable, where imperfection actually gains strength,” Pollet said.

Marleen Pyckavet

Maryck (Marleen Pyckavet) born in Belgium on the 30 of may in 1960 is a self-taught artist and began with painting when she was ill 25 years ago.
It was a necessity for her to express her feelings such as pain, grief and anger. But also joy, dance, music and flowers are present.
She has her own style by working experimental and intuitive.
Her Mixed Media materials are acryl, pastels, Kohl pencil and paper.
Painting gives her the opportunity to express things she can’t say with words.​

Atelier Renée

Childhood friends who grew together through creativity.
With only minimal academic training, we are a self-taught duo. Our hands-on, trial-and-error approach pushes us to be more creative, makes our work more challenging, and led us to establish our company, Atelier-Renée, in 2019.
The absolute foundation of Atelier-Renée is collaboration — we work on everything together. The scale of our designs makes it nearly impossible to create alone. There’s little ego in our studio, just a lot of cross-pollination that fuels vibrant energy.
Our personalities blend a love of art, architecture, and nature — influences that clearly emerge in our work.
​Our process is what makes us truly unique. Starting from rough sketches and many discussions, we begin working with grogged clay. Using hand-building techniques and no wheel, we shape forms with a raw stone-like look. This rough base is then enriched with clay we color ourselves. Up to a hundred handmade, pigmented clay balls form the foundation of our pieces. We apply the Japanese technique Nerikomi — in which colors are layered into patterns — not to make plates, but to wrap and decorate totems. If we had to describe ourselves:
“A raw, colorful, crazy duo.”

Tini Richter

Tini Richter was born in Dortmund in 1974 and has been exhibiting her work throughout Germany for several years, and this year she has started exhibiting in Austria.
Tini Richter's work inspires through her expressive choice of colour and the emotional depth she brings to the canvas through the use of various techniques.
She allows her feelings to flow freely and directly into the creative process.
This passion and spontaneity can be felt in each of her paintings and captivates the viewer at first glance. Her art is not just a visual representation - it invites reflection, inspires and stimulates thought.  Using a variety of techniques, she creates works of astonishing depth and complexity, offering the viewer a new approach.
Richter lives and works in Düsseldorf after spending several years on Sylt, where she found further inspiration. She successfully exhibited in Kampen in the summer of 2023.
Her work has gained increasing recognition in recent years and is exhibited in prestigious venues not only in Düsseldorf.

Marc Roos

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hugo Brutin
Step into the world of Marc Roos: art that touches, layer by layer
What if art were not only visible, but also tangible and palpable? Belgian artist Marc Roos creates an intriguing universe where power and subtlety come together. His sculptures, built in distinctive layers of clay, are inspired by the robust structure of pressed cardboard and the timeless layering of the earth itself. Each artwork exudes balance, tranquility and a timeless beauty, with each layer telling a new story.
A creative process that breathes freedom
Marc's work is created without pre-drawn plans - each sculpture is built instinctively, layer by layer. “It's a dialogue between me and the material,” Marc says.This intuitive working method gives his sculptures a vibrant, organic power. The oxide finish enhances the natural textures and colors, inviting each piece to explore and reflect. These are not objects to just look at, but works of art that manage to touch you as a viewer.
“My sculptures in clay are an invitation to stop time for a moment and lose yourself in a world of balance and tranquility.” - Marc Roos.

Anna Rubin

Anna Rubin, humanist-artist, paints in oil on Belgian linen using Old Masters Techniques of painting in layers starting with chiaroscuro, Flemish School in particular, in her own Modern Renaissance Realism style since 2004. Born in Moscow, Anna Rubin was brought up and further educated in Germany and Italy. She achieved international success and recognition as a professional artist on primary and secondary fine art market, lives and works in Florence, Italy. In her paintings, Anna Rubin uses meaningful compositions of antique and modern objects creating pictures and stories that are both contemporary and timeless, invigorating and serene. The portrait and figurative artworks by Anna Rubin connect individuals’ depiction, body language and a symbolic still-life with the intention of everlasting, visual, wholistic explanation of the personalities and their impact for generations to come.
Each composition is thoroughly researched and the artwork executed with minute detail, historical, cultural, theological and scientific knowledge and tradition. With thorough preparation and sensitivity for detail, Anna Rubin skilfully combines unique art objects, light and colour imbuing her artwork with immortal beauty, serenity and aesthetic joy.​

Henny Salimans

Henny Salimans draws with chalk in a way like painting horses on canvas. She combines expressive lines with surfaces in subtle range of colouring.
On 3, 4, 5 or more panels the theme ‘Horses’ has been abstracted. On these so called polyptychs ‘roll’ horsebacks over the panels endlessly repeated as a never ending motion of waves.
​

Michel Stoffel

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hilde Van Canneyt
Michel Stoffel is a fine art photographer based in Rixensart, Belgium.
Through his ‘Floral portraits’ project inspired by his passion for nature and photography, he invites us to contemplate the ephemeral beauty of flowers captured in breathtaking closeups. The forms, textures and colours of flowers are highlighted in large prints that are perfectly sharp from front to back allowing us to discover minute details invisible to the naked eye. 
Flowers are photographed in a studio specially designed for that purpose. Each portrait is created by combining several hundred photos taken with a slight shift in focus between each shot. On average, two weeks of work are required from the first shot to the finalization of a portrait. Whenever possible, Michel cultivates the flowers in his garden. He selects the seeds and bulbs that will produce flowers that meet his aesthetic criteria.

Sien Sweeck

Sien Sweeck searches for silence within herself with her colorfield paintings in acrylic on canvas.
Almost meditatively, she allows herself to be guided by the path the paint is seeking.
Layer after layer, a painting is created until it perfectly captures the feeling she wants to convey.

Olivier Van Borm

Olivier Van Borm, born in Bruges in 1980, spent much of his childhood playing outdoors and traveling the world with his parents. These early experiences sparked a deep fascination with the beauty of the planet — particularly nature in its purest, undisturbed form. While he acknowledges that not every place on Earth is equally beautiful, it is the untouched landscapes that continue to inspire him most.
Photography has always been his passion. Driven by a desire to capture unique moments, Olivier naturally gravitated toward nature photography rather than urban or architectural subjects. For him, every moment in nature is one of a kind — fleeting and unrepeatable — and that’s precisely what makes it so compelling.
At the beginning of 2024, he made the decision to fully dedicate himself to photography and transform his passion into something meaningful. Since then, Olivier has been working professionally as a photographer. Yet, no matter where his work takes him, he feels most at home when surrounded by nature.
​

Wim van de Wege

Wim van de Wege pursued his education at the Willem de Kooning Art Academy in Rotterdam and has developed into a versatile and highly skilled painter. He masterfully balances technique and emotion in his work, resulting in paintings with profound
depth and dynamic expression. A distinctive feature of his technique is the use of numerous transparent layers of paint, meticulously built up and finished with impasto-like textures. This interplay of translucency and bold, sculptural brushstrokes creates an exceptional sense of depth and movement, bringing his
compositions to life. His style is characterized by a powerful fusion of impressionistic and expressionistic influences, giving each canvas a unique intensity and vibrancy.
​

Jofke van Loon

Jofke van Loon graduated from the Academie voor Beeldende Vorming in Tilburg, the Netherlands, in 1999. For a long time Jofke tried to represent ‘the spirit’; an invisible and intangible presence. She came to the mission: ‘I want to make the invisible tangible and the tangible visible’. In doing so, she pulled out all the stops to see what lies at the bottom. After hard searching, it turned out that the can is bottomless. Now she looks at what appears on the surface, believing that all the answers lie in wait. Her challenge is to represent them and share her visual work, knowledge, experience and skills with others. She does this with her Studio Xplo in Tilburg. Thanks to her work with visually impaired people, Jofke has developed into an expert in non-visual imagination. As a result, she is regularly approached by museums for collaboration. She exhibits regularly, also abroad. Her work is inquisitive, experimental, has a spiritual slant and there is movement in it. Like herself.

Aurelie Van Regemortel

Aurelie Van Regemortel is 44 years old, a mother of 4 children, and happily married to Benoit. They live in Antwerp.
She has spent her life captivated by the raw energy of street art and the joy that art can bring to people. Her work blends graffiti-inspired backgrounds, photo-based collages, and pop art elements, creating a unique fusion of urban expression and playful sensuality.
She often incorporates well-known characters and fun figures, weaving them into her compositions with a touch of kinky, sexy charm. Her process starts with photo transfers, which she then paints over with acrylics, adding depth, color, and her signature style. Each piece is a celebration of bold creativity, designed to surprise, delight, and spark emotions.
For her, art is about breaking boundaries and creating happiness, all while staying true to the rebellious, electrifying spirit of street culture.

Mieke Van Wesepoel

.Mieke Van Wesepoel is a Belgian artist with a unique vision artist. Complete with a university education on the University of Gent as a pharmacist.
At a young age she went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Aalst where she learned to develop her drawing talent.
In 2022 she decided to take up her original passion again, drawing and painting.
In her work Mieke combines illustrative and abstract elements, with an occasional touch of realism. Although her style is versatile, everything is connected by a recognizable common thread: a universe full of expressive faces, eyes, colors black, white and red all this executed with mix media.
This beautiful collaboration between art and brain helps improve her powers of observation and stimulates her creativity and self-expression.

Charlotte Vandromme

Born out of a 70-year-old tradition, the creations by Charlotte Vandromme stand for the art of jewelry. Passionate about craftsmanship and recycled gold and cultivated precious stones, she can be considered a pioneer and no standard jewelry designer. Often the creations are linked to a turning point in the life of the collector. Unique creations are to be discovered during this one-woman show under the great Chandelier of the Grand Casino Knokke.

Claire Vanhoutte

Honda ArtPrize 2025
In recent years, Claire Vanhoutte has experienced a remarkable artistic development. Her early paintings explored the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, with subtle colours and layered techniques forming the basis.
Meanwhile, her style has evolved into more complex and expressive compositions. Her recent paintings reflect a profound search for harmony between structure and spontaneity, using abstraction to evoke emotions and stories without explicitly naming them.
Her current style is an intriguing fusion of abstract forms and figurative touches, which together evoke a dynamic, sometimes surreal world. Colour plays a central role in her work, with powerful contrasts and fluid transitions suggesting movement and energy.
Vanhoutte's paintings are visually compelling and invite introspection, giving the viewer an active role in interpreting her art. This layering makes her oeuvre both unique and timeless.’

Dédônjean

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Willem Elias
Dédônjean is an artist in search of a personal visual language where space takes center stage. His work is defined by silent structures and the quiet beauty of perfect imperfection. It is what it is — honest, unforced, and deeply grounded.
Each piece invites stillness. What may seem flat at first glance slowly reveals itself as a landscape of scars and layers, shaped by time and touch. Through careful composition and subtle handling, the materials acquire an almost sacred presence.
His abstract forms balance between control and chaos. Using monochrome fields of color, Dédônjean draws full attention to texture, to shadow, and to the delicate interaction between surface and depth.
His work becomes a space for reflection — a visual meditation that holds presence, restraint, and a quiet sense of wonder.
​

Roberto Verde

Roberto Verde, born in 1953, is a Belgian artist and architect. From his mastery of traditionaloil-on-canvas techniques, he actively participates in the global community of AI artists.
Last year, a New York collective named him one of the "100 artists to follow in 2024."
His artistic process is characterized by the careful application of thin layers of oil paint and Damar resin, resulting in multi-dimensional compositions — paintings that reveal hidden emotions and search for the archetypes that connect us.

Dirk Verschueren

Born in 1970, Dirk Verschueren is largely self-taught, although in recent years he has immersed himself in the painting techniques of the old masters. For the past year and a half, he has been working weekly in studio De Studio, where portraits come to life with a striking realism. However, the more exclusive work within his oeuvre consists of nude paintings, in which classical techniques merge with a contemporary Cubist interpretation.
“My artistic vision revolves around capturing the beauty of human beings and the everyday things that surround us. In my paintings I try to capture not only a physical likeness, but also the soul and emotion of the model at that specific moment.”
His portraits excel in high realism, while his nudes have a Cubist slant, dissecting the human body into forms and tonal value planes. Yet there always remains a harmony and connection in the whole. The first sketches for these works are created in model classes, after which the most interesting compositions are further developed in oil on canvas.
During the ArtistMeeting in Knokke, Dirk Verschueren will present a selection of his most recent works. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience this unique combination of technical mastery and emotional depth up close.

Maarten Versteeg

Maarten Versteeg, the designer behind Brech, is not only trained as a goldsmith, but also as an industrial designer.
Brech's sleekly designed jewelry looks simple. But appearances are deceptive. A closer look reveals hidden messages, surprising movement and innovative materials and production methods. For example, the 'Draaiparel' ring can be worn in three different positions and the TC diamond is made of the same unbreakable ceramic from which ceramic brake discs are also made.

Isabelle Verté

Isabelle Verté creates abstract paintings born from a deep sensitivity to atmosphere, nature, and emotion. Her works are a personal translation of her inner world, influenced by elements such as landscapes, architecture, travel, and the intense colors she encounters along the way. Using mixed media — including acrylic paint, natural pigments, crackle powder, modeling paste, and
sand — Isabelle builds her paintings layer by layer. These materials give her work texture and depth, making emotion tangible and vivid. Subtle transitions, transparency, drippings, and organic forms create a play between stillness and movement, light and dark, reflection and clarity. Her style — rooted in abstract expressionism — is both intuitive and technically precise. Each work invites contemplation, yet breathes energy. What connects her oeuvre is a strong visual coherence and a clearartistic voice that doesn’t just invite observation but also evokes feeling. Isabelle’s work is characterized by a warm, emotional resonance and is intended to bring beauty and reflection into the viewer’s space. For her, art is not just visual; it is a transfer of energy, color, and presence.
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Rostyslav Voronko

Rostyslav Voronko is a contemporary Ukrainian artist based in Germany. His artistic journey is deeply intertwined with his personal experiences, the landscapes he explores, and the emotions he seeks to convey through his work. With a strong foundation in painting and mixed media, Voronko’s art is a reflection of nature, human resilience, and the ever-changing perception of reality. Voronko’s artistic practice is driven by an exploration of form, texture, and light. His works often oscillate between realism and abstraction, capturing ephemeral moments that evoke a deep emotional response. Whether through oil paintings or monochrome sketches, he navigates the intricate relationship between memory, displacement, and identity. A key aspect of his creative process is working en plein air, where he captures the essence of landscapes directly from nature. His color-driven paintings immerse the audience in atmospheric moments, where nature and emotion merge seamlessly. The interplay of light and shadow in his works evokes a deep connection to the natural world, reflecting his fascination with fleeting impressions and the emotions they evoke. Voronko’s artistic achievements include exhibitions in Germany, France, Belgium, the United States, and Poland, as well as participation in international art fairs and charity auctions. Over the past year, his work has been showcased at Van Der Plas Gallery in New York, and he also has a permanent exhibition at the Embassy of Ukraine in Berlin since 2021. He runs his own art studio, Kunstatelier ROSTYSLAV VORONKO, in Beeskow, where he continues to develop his artistic vision and engage with the local and international art community. Through his art, Voronko invites the viewer on a journey of contemplation, where the boundaries of time and space blur, leaving room for personal interpretation and emotional resonance. His work stands as a testament to the power of art in capturing the complexities of the human condition and the unspoken dialogues between past and present.

Isabelle Wallemacq

Isabelle Wallemacq took lessons from a "Maître verrier" aka Glass Master in Mons, who also teaches at the Brussels Art Academy.
All her life she has been impressed by the play of light and color in glass. Reflections and sparkles that vary with light intensity and incidence make glass art something somewhat mysterious.
Always looking for different techniques and different forms in her work, she works with different materials besides glass to create original pedestals.
Processing glass is fascinating because the result surprises every time depending on the firing technique.

Franky Weyn

Franky Weyn is an artist who explores the boundaries of contemporary art by combining elements of street art, pop art, graffiti, and classical expressionism. His work reflects a unique fusion of different styles, linking the raw energy of street art with the emotional depth of expressionist additions. Weyn's creations are not only visually appealing, but also an invitation to reflect on the world around us. Through his unique mix of styles, he knows how to appeal to a wide audience and connect them with the depth of human experience. As a contemporary artist, he responds to current themes and contexts, which allows his work to be an important voice in the discussion about art and society.

Bart Jan Wijsman

After selling his company, Bart Jan Wijsman reached a moment in life where he wanted to express his creativity in a new way. Since he enjoys bringing atmosphere and color into life, painting was a natural choice. With a great passion for cooking, he was already accustomed to creating not only flavorful but also highly colorful compositions on the plate. Cooking, building objects, and painting were always things he loved to do. Together with his brother Wim, he crafted exclusive pavilions, garden houses, tables, cabinets, and designed gardens. Never straightforward, never a repetition of what had been done before, and always with a keen sense of style and a deep awareness of the surrounding environment. As a self-taught artist with a healthy dose of ADHD, he had to figure everything out on his own to specialize in painting. He quickly realized that his work would be abstract. His art is characterized by the use of bold colors combined with a reflective quality where light is uniquely refracted and mirrored. The visual effects of these colorful, glossy panels create depth and gain a three-dimensional aspect, reminiscent of looking into water. As someone who loves the outdoors, he can often be found in nature, at the beach, or on the water. This is where his deep fascination with the color blue originates. The vast variety of blue shades continues to captivate him endlessly. Coming from a creative family, Bart Jan was introduced to craftsmanship in various forms from an early age. He sees this phase of his life as a new journey of discovery, where he experiments with design processes, materials, and techniques. Painting allows him to detach from everyday distractions. The process of applying resin is also slow and deliberate, bringing him into a trance-like state and helping him to be fully present in the moment. The viewer is encouraged to adopt the same attentive, perhaps meditative state when observing his work, taking the time to be present and allowing color and form to take effect. For those who feel a connection to his style and artistic language, Bart Jan is also open to creating custom pieces. Whether it's a specific atmosphere, a meaningful story, or a unique space that calls for something personal, he welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on commissioned work.
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Cathérine Willems

Cathérine Willems's paintings reflect her unique style and artistic vision.  Cathérine's choice of subject matter is especially appealing, telling a story that resonates with the viewer. Her use of colors and patterns make her works unique.
Painting allows Cathérine to bring stories and concepts to life through visual interpretation. Her paintings are vivid and compelling, conveying ideas and emotions in a unique and engaging way, creating a deep connection between the work and the viewer.

Bérengère Wittamer

ArtistMeeting Award 2025 by Hugo Brutin
​Bérengère Wittamer (alias Chamyaz) lives and works in Luxembourg. Since childhood, she has explored and experimented with the many dimensions of the
visual arts. An architect and urban planner, she now chooses to express herself primarily through artistic creation, with a focus on painting. The interconnectedness of these various disciplines shines through in her compositions, in the formal language
she employs: “There exists a link between art, architecture, and urbanism as means to structure space, to represent complex environments or concepts through
simplified forms and symbols.” Her visual language reveals a plurality of signs, as if in search of a primal semantics— a symbolic system with a coded linguistic quality. Paradoxically, despite its raw, almost naive graphic expression, her painting is conceptually rigorous. In her worlds—sometimes utopian, sometimes dystopian—archetypal figures and hybrid beings are staged within meticulously structured compositions. Her obsession with “material” is another key element of her work, influencing how each piece is constructed, giving it a corporeality and sensuality that goes beyond the smooth
surface of the canvas. The choice of material must carry meaning, as it is inseparable from the work’s identity—it is its body, its skin. Chamyaz’s work is also “engaged,” imbued with strong symbolism, confronting pressing issues of our time with intensity: war, human barbarity, the place of women in society (today symbolized by the plight of Afghan women), and humanity’s transformations are central themes in her art. The result is a highly contemporary body of work that speaks in an intimate dialogue with the age we inhabit.

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