Artists | Sint-Denijs-City

Fabiola Burgos Labra

“Fabiola Burgos Labra brings very tactical textual art with a beautiful feminine touch, in great contrast with this agricultural landscape.” - curator Jan Leysen The work of this Chilean artist Fabiola Burgos Labra is often process based, and that's where repetition comes in. She creates stories with little elements that are focused on materials. Her work arises by experimenting with sculpture, weaving, actions and installations. Textile plays an important role in her artwork. Through this specific medium she can communicate in different ways and play with light, colour and mathematical patterns that at the same time contain history and point to a different future.

Elias Cafmeyer

“Elias Cafmeyer elevates the daily boring traffic architecture and urban architecture to art. He aestheticizes this in a majestic way.” curator Jan Leysen Elias Cafmeyer (1990) departures from his fascination for Urban Development and architecture and creates installations and sculptures in the public space. By removing these elements from the public space and placing them in a different, new artificially created context, he misleads the viewer. His work often has something surrealistic and tragic comical.

Jake & Dinos Chapman

“The brothers Chapman often denounce totalitarian regimes by referring their art to Hitler, and at the same time mock these regimes. Very confronting!” curator Jan Leysen The British brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman knew their breakthrough in 2008 after buying 13 aquarelles and drawings made by Adolf Hitler and edited them with rainbows and stars. They called the Gesammtkunstwerk “If Hitler Had Been A Hippy How Happy Would We Be.” Since then known as the “enfants terribles” of the British art scene and they're looking for limits and confrontations to see what's acceptable to display and what isn't. Their artworks are often seen as shocking or provocative, often work referrals to motivations or pornography.

Ilke Cop

“Ilke Cop is a part of the new female Figurative art movement. Her work is quite provocative and direct, a beautiful contrast with the old farmhouse. Cop designed a special wall for the farmhouse, an installation of nine sculptures and a big bas-relief.” curator Jan Leysen In a world that seems more and more uninhabitable, Ilke Cop (1988) creates an alternative reality where there's no limits to her creative power as an artist. In Cop’s work traditional roles are being denounced. She doesn’t reject her role as amused but claims it, together with the role of the almighty creator which is a referral to religious and political roles often assigned to men. She uses traditional techniques and her search for a new visual language.

Leo Copers

“Leo Copers is the godfather of Belgian conceptual art and teaches us to get to know each other better by using a special machine that encourages us to shake hands. A must try!” curator Jan Leysen Since the end of the 60s Leo Copers (1947) has built an oeuvre with a variety of sculptures, installations and performances. He plays with daily objects that he adjusts and edits so they become dramatical or poetical. Danger, destruction and mortality are repeated themes throughout his work, just like the aestheticization of violence. By playing with expectations he deceives the viewer by minimal adjustments of the object or the context.

Bert Danckaert

“With Bert Danckaert we take a step into the world where he will aestheticise ugly cityscapes into beautiful photographs.” curator Jan Leysen Minimalist, simple and straightforward - this is how the work of photographer Bert Danckaert (1965) has been described. He admires the aesthetics of everyday things. In his work you find a lot of walls. He has an eye for subtle colour patterns and geometrical patterns which makes this artwork anything but ordinary true so his artwork is neither a documentary or imagination, it resembles recognisability and abstraction.

DD Trans

“DD Trans made a special sculpture in glass in lead for Sint-Denijs-City. That's something he hasn't done before. In this artwork he flirts with the language conflicts so close to the language border. He also questions the emptiness and a lot of villages.” curator Jan Leysen DD Trans is the pseudonym of Frank Tuytschaever (1963). He borrowed his name from a, in the meantime disbanded, transport company. Transformation plays the main role in his artwork; he loves to give a surrealistic twist to everyday objects. Home, garden, and kitchen appliances get a new and deeper meaning. His work is also a bit nimble but with little gestures he questions a lot of things. The DIY shops and the Supra Bazar are an inspiration to him.

Peter de Cupere

“Scent artist Peter de Cupere has designed a specific scent installation for Sint-Denijs-City in one of the sheds. Make sure to keep your nostrils open.” curator Jan Leysen Smell and all possible senses are the art medium of Peter de Cupere (1970), one of the pioneers of olfactory art. He makes artworks that place our olfactory perception in social, cultural and ecological context. This is how he wants the viewer, or rather say the smeller, think about the climate and issues in our society. Scent is his medium to question social issues. He created the Olphabet which is a scent alphabet for the blind and visually impaired, and the Blind Smell Stick, a cane for blind people and visually impaired to find their way. He also has invented the Olfactiano, the first functioning scent piano in the world.

Henk Delabie

“Henk Delabie displays the architecture of the mundane but represented with a twist. Because of that, you’ll have to look twice to see what’s there.” curator Jan Leysen Henk Delabie (1966) is a visual artist who wants us to commemorate the space and the art of sculpture. His sculptures are unpredictable and unaccountable but make total sense. They have the elegance and accuracy to bring the environment to life.

Ronny Delrue

“Are there any saints left and do we still need them? Has individual morality become the standard? This installation by Ronny Delrue goes beyond just asking this question. Ronny Delrue is fascinated by transience. Another new work of art exists out of two tombstones hereby he also questions his own existence.” - curator Jan Leysen Ronny Delrue (1957) keeps a drawing diary that is the base of his creations. His drawings are the basis of his sculptures. In his opinion a portrait is a landscape and a landscape is a portrait that reveals but also conceils. A sculpture mainly starts from an anecdote or a strike put a pencil but then gets turned into something universal and recognisable that's very different from other sculptures. The artist denounces what he often calls the ‘pollution’ of our minds that troubles our thinking. That's why their heads are locked up in a balloon or bodies are wrapped with barbed wire.

Sofie Demeyer

“This is going to be one of the first exhibitions of Sofie Demeyer. I have already seen fantastic artwork in her studio so it is about time that many others can also enjoy her art. She has a specific talent to paint urban scenes in a very casual and effortless way.” - curator Jan Leysen Sofie Demeyer (1983) experimented with a lot of monotypes, aquarelle and drawings but has mainly has found her niche in painting. She makes big paintings that are very colourful and full of fantasy that often have a touch of absurdism. Sometimes she also paints an open space influenced by graffiti street art. The characters in her artwork often have an alienated vibe, it seems they might even wonder how they ended up in these pictures.

Greet Desal

“Greet Desal makes surprising sculptures that are in between old, traditional Greek sculptures but at the same time have a very contemporary touch.” - curator Jan Leysen Greet Desal (1971) makes images and sculptures. Our universe is being crowded by animals, gods, half gods and humans. Animalistic drifts and human compassion meet each other, the tense relationship between human and animal, between human and nature is a continuous source of inspiration. With her work of art she wants to put a mirror up in front of the viewer to make the viewer look into themselves. This is art with a message that makes us think about our fears and desires.

Adelheid De Witte

“Adelheid De Witte is an credible powerful force. Within her paintings but also with the neon sculpture that that we display. This artwork will ground people right away and the and it displays perfectly why we make this place the essence of this exhibition perfectly.” - curator Jan Leysen Adelheid De Witte (1982) combines paintings, installations, drawings with words. She loves to play with different contrasts, between old and new, vague and sharp, dark and cheerful, figurative and abstract. She brings all of this together to an abstract landscape seeing where light always plays a crucial role. Her work has been described as a continuation of the Belgian surrealistic tradition with a contemporary layer.

Filip Dujardin

“Filip Dujardin art historian and photographer two aspects that are also reflected in his artwork. He has designed a forest of trees made of stone for Sint-Denijs-City. This material creates a beautiful contrast together with the crops in the background.” - curator Jan Leysen Cut, paste and create something new, that’s what Filip Dujardin (1971) does with his picture collages and sculptures. The material would need to be crushed first before it can be redesigned. He loves to experiment with the limits of architecture and uses art historical iconic images in his digital picture collages. By using images of real buildings and digitally material, Dujardin creates new surrealistic and imaginary buildings that balance between reality and fiction. He also designs installations for the public and private space.

Nick Ervinck

“Nick Ervinck brings one of his majestic, big sculptures. An artwork that because of the that is so powerful because of the shape and colour brings a fantastic contrast with green and rural landscape of Sint-Denijs-City.” - curator Jan Leysen The work of Nick Ervinck (1981) ranges from big installations, handmade and 3D printed sculptures, ceramics, Prince, drawings, light boxes and animation movies. Finds old trades which new computer techniques. He remains fascinated by classical sculptors, but mixes his creations with contemporary pop and science fiction culture.

Daan Gielis

“The recently deceased Daan Gielis leaves behind magnificent artwork. His work in Sint-Denijs-City is a neon sculpture that's not flashy but dark and radiates the sorrow and melancholy of our daily life.” - curator Jan Leysen The artworks of Daan Gielis (1988-2023) display our emotional conflicts and her own struggles with finding consistency. From his own experience with is serious autoimmune disease Gielis was interested in the contradictions from the human existence: the interconnectedness of left and sadness, satisfied longings that only continued to bring new longings. His way of working has been marked by a punk attitude with a sharp eye for detail.

Jan Kempenaers

“Jan Kempenaers has travelled around the world and has taken phenomenal pictures of deserted and crowded places in gigantic cities. He strikingly questions the place of humans within this space.” - curator Jan Leysen Jan Kempenaers (1968) mixes pictures of urban landscapes. Because he takes these pictures from a high perspective, the images often look like a scale model. We can see highways, monorails and channels which seem to be moving towards the horizon from one corner of the picture. The horizon is mainly made out of different images such as a railway, a parking lot or a port. Kempenaers prefers a matt, homogeneous light with as little as possible unfiltered sunlight. This is how, according to the artist, you get an unreal, thin image in which the landscape loses its depth.

Conny Kuilboer

“Conny Kuilboer sees poetry and everyday life. This is how an example of this is the festive ribbons in between the power lines. A great discovery.” - curator Jan Leysen The Dutch artist Conny Kuilboer (1976) is fascinated by different concepts of time. She translates her observations in big objects clouds that pass by in wool boxes, makes wheelbarrows full of diamonds or creates felt plugs. She often uses blankets, as they stand for protection and warmed. Hilly landscapes are often a source of inspiration for her artwork.

Kris Martin

“Kris Martin has designed a new sculpture especially for Sint-Denijs-City. It will be an extension of his exhibition in the S.M.A.K. in Ghent in 2020. I must say I am very curious myself.” - curator Jan Leysen Kris Martin (1972) structures, drawings, pictures and installations that express his continuous concern about humanity and all its contradictions. He asks the viewer existential questions but in a subtle and very humorous way. He uses ready-mades but places them in a different context. He often also refers to big iconic examples of art history, religion and literature. Think about ‘Altar’, a steel replica of the ‘Lam Gods’ but then only the frame without the painted panels. You can find this artwork on the beach of Ostend.

Neo Matloga

“Neo Matloga researches if the exoticness that has sneaked into our North-Western society actually feel at home on this continent.“ - curator Jan Leysen The South African artist Neo Matloga (1993) commutes between his native country and the Netherlands. He takes images from theatre, performance, television soaps, family albums, comic books and magazines. He edits the images digitally, and edits them again with charcoal, ink and paint and transforms them into a collage painting. His palette is nearly monochrome with a lot of white black and grey. His characters are hybrid compositions, his backgrounds show the daily life of the present, while at the same time they refer to historical paintings of the 19th century.

Renato Nicolodi

“Renato Nicolodi instructs a sort of mausolea, a monument for people that haven't died yet, which makes them timeless. He displays an art work in Sint-Denijs-City that's never been shown in Belgium before.” - curator Jan Leysen Renato Nicolodi (1980) makes sculptures and paintings, although you could also call them monuments, or shrines. He shapes spaces with hallways and stairs that lead to close of passages. You were first to the archetypal buildings from the past but strips them of their original function and ornaments, which makes them look really basic. He plays with lights and shadow, elements that invite a viewer to reflect or even meditate.

Julie Pfleiderer

“Especially for Sint-Denijs-City Julie Pfleiderer has designed a car wash. That wasn’t included in the landscape yet.” - curator Jan Leysen The German artist Julie Pfleiderer (1979) makes multi media art. She loves to create a dialogue between different mediums. Because of her background in theatre her work has a lot of influences from performance arts and cinema. She loves to play which limits between truth and imagination, her artwork could be fiction or even a documentary.

Karl Philips

“Karl Philips brings a urban infrastructure to the rural area of Sint-Denijs, come up a bin from Brussels that's been rebuild with a touch of personal drama.” - curator Jan Leysen The artwork of Karl Philips (1984) is often location bound. He creates an installation for a specific location and together with friends or colleagues he entered he intervenes with the installation. He plays with different genres and content and makes the borders between sculptures, theatre and people fade. His projects often take place at a specific moment: sometimes that can be three months, another time that's only three seconds.

Peter Puype

“Peter Puype likes to provoke. He transforms signs from manifestations into art. Sometimes idealism must give way to have a drink together in the pub.” - curator Jan Leysen Peter Puype (1974) makes drawings, sculptures and installations that are very expressive with a specific attention to language. He plays with slogans and visual language to make his critical point of view towards society into art. Despite the very clear messaging his work of art is still playful, fresh and humorous. He uses the language of the sacred cows and reshapes election posters and advertising or images of churches into art. Although he focuses on the message he wants to bring, shapes and colours are also crucial.

Nancy Slangen

“Nancy Slangen her paintings seem very figurative and include special characters such as cosplayers for example. Take you time to slowly discover all the different layers in this work of art.” - curator Jan Leysen Nancy Slangen (1966) makes colleges, paintings and sculptures. You could compare her to a contemporary DJ. She takes images from everywhere and samples it into her own work. Her sculptures are also based on existing objects but she will add selectively sought out material that she edits. There's often a dialogue in her artwork , it looks like the sculptures look at the paintings. Her work is about power and powerlessness, secrets, desires and compulsion. Her artwork often also refers to silent memories.

Stijn Stragier

“Stijn Stragier is making waves in New York and Hong Kong but is hardly known in our own country. He creates a new world with 3D photography, Photoshop and video.” - curator Jan Leysen Stijn Stragier (1976) is an architect and art photographer. He made series pseudo pictures that question our traditional takes about space and structure and how humans move within it. He makes use of the most modern computer techniques to shape his surrealist images as seats into realistic environments. He pushes the limits in between reality and a virtual world.

Nele Van Canneyt

“Nele Van Canneyt is an explorer and poet with video. Now she displays urban the video in the rural background of Sint-Denijs-City.” - curator Jan Leysen Nele Van Canneyt is a visual artist who mainly works with photo and video. She's intrigued by cities and urban surroundings. She searches for quietness and busy places. In her photo series it's about the game of night and day, and she combines different locations and moments, because of this combination the images get a new connection. Her work ‘The fall’ it's part of his sequence she recorded in New York. The images, that are not staged, illustrate how the environment rapidly reacts to a fall. This reminds us of the bystander effect in psychology, where it's been researched how people react in a certain situation when they are surrounded by people.

Alice Vanderschoot

“Alice Vanderschoot finds humour and urban infrastructure, for example advertising signs. She changes the shapes and turns them into special sculptures that make us criticise urbanism.” - curator Jan Leysen Alice Vanderschoot (1989) creates a whole new colourful and playful reality based on contemporary visual communication. She questions authenticity and origin of this ordinary images. She intertwines soft, pastel coloured textures with hard, cold material. With her artwork she challenges the viewer to think about the origin of archetypes and symbols. Her work is often humoristic, cartoonish and playful.

Kristof Van Heeschvelde

“Kristof Van Heeschvelde paints contemporary scenes. Because his artworks have historical iconographical layer they are timeless.” - curator Jan Leysen Kristof Van Heeschvelde (1979) is a storyteller on canvas. He hides multiple meanings and layers in his work, at first sight it looks playful but it also requests a second look. He finds his inspiration in the rich tradition of her artwork from old masters such as your Jordaens, Rubens and Tintoretto as a source of inspiration but in a new social and political context. Often he places different elements next to each other that don't have much or anything to do with each other. By adding naive colour palettes into his work you will also discover a humoristic side.

Koen Vanmechelen

“Koen Vanmechelen displays a new sculpture, the Salvator Globe. It’s a mix of a globe, a cross and a rooster who is shouting at the future.” - curator Jan Leysen Koen Vanmechelen (1965) isn't only internationally a famous interdisciplinary artist, he's also a versatile thinker. Yes exploring the boundaries between art, science, philosophy and community. He travels round the world looking for answers that evolve around timeless and current topics: identity, diversity, globalising, human rights. You can find the answers in the artwork, they’re always in a work-in-progress state. The whole artwork is a reflection on the human animal, a search for different ways to live to learn to live together. His life works you can find in LABIOMISTA, in the areas of the old zoo of Zwartberg in Genk. It's a continuous changing work of art about the mix of life.

Jonas Vansteenkiste

“Jonas Vansteenkiste brings a beautiful sculpture bar houses are laying on top of each other. He questions the urbanisation and scrutinises the uniqueness of all houses that actually all look identical.” - curator Jan Leysen The work of this versatile artist (1984) Comes in different shapes: installations, video, pictures and drawings. He loves to refer to architectural elements and often uses them in his work as well, space is a reoccurring theme. The spaces that he creates are often physically as mentally. To fewer often gets an active role, because that's been asked of the viewer to step into the artwork and be part of it. The concept of home plays a really important role in his work. The home can be a shelter but might as well be a trap or even a prison.

Daniëlle van Zadelhoff

“Daniëlle van Zadelhoff is a gifted, international a well known photographer. Her clear obscure work of arts touches the viewer and she cuts particularly sharply to the theme of impermanence.” - curator Jan Leysen The game of life and arc, declare obscured technique is one of the most important features of the art photography of Daniëlle. Her portrait photography has risen from a curiosity to discover the inside of humans. The association with the paintings of the big masters of the Flemish primitive, the South Dutch masters or the Renaissance is obvious but is never too dominant. Clair-obscure accentuates the emotions of the people in the portrait. This also connects the past, the present and future.

Simon Verheylesonne

“Simon Verheylesonne finds poetry in the daily they things of life. If you look at it from one side it looks like a kind of ready-made object with a structure that resembles a church. If you look at it from a different angle it also could be a church tower that's been rebuilt. It shows the transience of the institute or maybe of the new hope.” - curator Jan Leysen The multidisciplinary artwork of Simone Verheylesonne (1991) centralises the iconic importance of sculpture. His research has been driven by “our natural imagination to create” and how our creative manifestations correlate to our community. He brings an ode to his and also ours collective past. Also to the arts and to the objects and memories that influenced how he sees the world when he was a child and also until today as an adult.

Klaus Verscheure

“Klaus Verscheure is inspired by hidden lives often affected by crimes. You translate this into a beautiful art work but you can feel the threatening suspense. He often paints in black and white but especially for Sint-Denijs-City he has added a splash of colour.” - curator Jan Leysen Artists already have spent centuries making art about the death and mortality. That's also the theme of Klaus Verscheure (1968) his art work. He paints portraits, trees, mountains, houses, at first sight they're just ordinary things from our daily lives. But it goes much further. By creating beauty Verscheure makes us look at ourselves and the violent society we live in. To trees are not simply the subject of the artwork because of their pictorial meaning. The landscapes and flowers are not there to be admired. He portrays them because of what they were. Throughout history people once hung on trees, the flowers hang on to the road to our memories as if someone lost their life out there. Paintings and video meet in ‘The Road’.

Liliane Vertessen

“Liliane Vertessen, who at the time was refused in our love exhibitions because of their shocking artwork, brings a picture of her semi naked self and a new sculpture. This refers to the human and sexuality and the discussion around this topic.” - curator Jan Leysen Liliane Vertessen (1952) makes multimedia installations, art where she mainly uses analogue photography with neon and other elements. She often uses images of herself that she manipulates. She's also inspired by painting for example mise-en-scène or the choice for self-portraits. She loves to experiment with the variety of spectrum of roles that are often assigned to women: de temptress, the lady, the sex object, the prostitute or the innocent young girl.

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