Berlinde De Bruyckere
°1964, Ghent (BE) – lives and works in Ghent (BE)
Berlinde De Bruyckere makes haunting distortions of organic forms with wax, animal skin, hair, textile, metal and wood. Key motives in her oeuvre are the fragility and vulnerability of man, the suffering body – both human and animal – and the overwhelming power of nature. De Bruyckere’s work deals with the fundamental human quest for transformation, transcendence and reconciliation in the light of mortality.
De Bruyckere is strongly influenced by traditions from the Flemish Renaissance. Drawing on the legacy of the European Old Masters and Christian iconography, as well as mythology and cultural lore, De Bruyckere interweaves existing histories with new narratives – to create a psychological terrain of pathos, tenderness and unease. The duality of love and suffering, danger and protection, life and death and the human need for understanding are the universal themes with which De Bruyckere has been concerned since the beginning of her career. “I want to show how helpless a body can be,” says De Bruyckere, “Which is nothing to be afraid of – it can be something beautiful.”
Berlinde De Bruyckere – Aletheia, On-vergeten, 2019. installation view at Bonnefanten, Maastricht in 2021 (Photo by Mirjam Devriendt)
Berlinde De Bruyckere – exhibition view at BonnefantenMaastricht in (Photo by Mirjam Devriendt)
Berlinde De Bruyckere – Kreupelhout Cripplewood, 2012-2013
Berlinde De Bruyckere – ARCANGELO III, 2020,
Berlinde De Bruyckere – Romeu, 2010
Berlinde De Bruyckere – Parasiet, 1997
Berlinde De Bruyckere – Spreken [To Speak], 1999
Recent solo exhibitions include Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Rubenshuis, Antwerp; Leopold Museum, Vienna; Kunsthal Aarhus; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag; S.M.A.K., Ghent; and MAMCO, Toulouse. In 2013 De Bruyckere was selected to represent Belgium at the 55th Venice Biennale, for which she collaborated with Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee.
Berlinde De Bruyckere is represented by the following galleries;
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