Berlinde be Bruyckere: an artistic pick

 Hello to all the lovely creatures out there!

Today I'd like to introduce you to an artist that I am very fond of, because of the unique artworks she creates. Meet y'all Berlinde de Bruyckere! She is a Belgian contemporary artist who works in sculpture and installation. Her sculptures use body-like forms and her work is influenced by religious imagery, mythology, and the Flemish Renaissance. Themes in her artwork display human experience, existence, and raw emotion.

Berlinde De Bruyckere. City of Refuge III', Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy, 2024

Some facts about de Bruyckere: Berlinde De Bruyckere was born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1964 where she currently lives and works. Her dad worked as a butcher, which desensitized her to seeing corpses, which later was incorporated into her art. She graduated from the LUCA School of Arts in Ghent in 1986.

De Bruyckere uses a variety of mediums, such as animal skin, wax, wood, metal, textiles, watercolor, and gouache, rendering haunting distortions of organic forms. The vulnerability and fragility of man, the suffering body—both human and animal—and the overwhelming power of nature are some of the core motifs of De Bruyckere’s oeuvre.

Berlinde De Bruyckere. Plunder / Ekphrasis, MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, Montpellier, France, 2022

Berlinde De Bruyckere. In the Flesh, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, 2013

Before working on the life-size sculptures for her exhibitions, De Brucyckere would make a scale model of the artwork rather than sketching it out. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, De Bruyckere would make large cast wax sculptures of human figures. Specifically in the early 1990s many of her major works have featured structures involving blankets. Their use is symbolic both of warmth and shelter, and of the vulnerable circumstances such as wars that make people seek such shelter. As De Bruyckere works on her piece, she pays attention to the details, such as the surfaces of her work, to express the meaning of her art. Additionally, she tends to use props that connect with her story's artwork.

Berlinde De Bruyckere, No Life Lost I, 2014-2015

De Bruyckere is profoundly influenced by traditions of the Flemish Renaissance. Drawing from the legacies of the European Old Masters and Christian iconography, as well as mythology and cultural lore, De Bruyckere layers existing histories with new narratives suggested by current events to create a psychological terrain of pathos, tenderness and unease. The dualities of love and suffering, danger and protection, life and death and the human need for understanding are the universal themes De Bruyckere has been dealing with since the beginning of her career. 

‘I want to show how helpless a body can be,’ De Bruyckere has said. ‘Which is nothing you have to be afraid of—it can be something beautiful.’

Berlinde De Bruyckere, Piëta, 2007-2008

I stumbled across de Bruyckere by chance, but since then I've been unable to move on the same. Her art creates something unique, that speaks to you so deeply, connected with feelings you didn't know they even existed! Then again, that is what her work does to me. I'd love to hear your opinion on her and her artworks, I believe she is an artist that can really "shake up things" around her.

Until then, iI'll be seeing you in the next post

xoxoxo