Stief Desmet: Solo Exhibition
"I don't believe in ultimate perfection. I believe in a beauty that arises only when there are certain irregularities in the composition."
MPV Gallery is pleased to announce the new solo exhibition by Belgian artist Stief Desmet (1973, BE). Starting May 9, the gallery will present a selection of recent paintings and sculptures - works that reflect an artistic practice in constant flux, effortlessly crossing boundaries between media.
In his work, Desmet reveals a particular preoccupation with the troubled relationship between humans and animals, between city and nature. The artist seems perpetually caught between the reality of life in a contemporary, fast-paced society focused on consumption and his longing for a utopian, sublime natural state. At the same time, he remains subtly critical and, with the necessary irony, undermines this yearning for an idyllic fantasy.
The exhibition brings together a series of new oil paintings and drawings in which botanical motifs, mythological references, and personal icons converge. In addition to the paintings, the gallery also presents a selection of sculptures crafted from various materials.
Desmet experiences the creation of sculptures as a liberating process alongside painting. The three dimensions of a sculpture ensure that little can be changed after the creation process. With a painting, this is more difficult: the flatness of the canvas accommodates many layers and offers an unrestrained range of possibilities in terms of image and composition.
As a starting point, Desmet often draws on iconic images from our collective memory—typical Flemish front-yard sculptures, vanitas paintings, and hunting scenes by the Old Masters—but just as often on botanical elements he finds in his immediate surroundings. The result is a body of work that defies categorization into a single style or technique: associative, iconoclastic, and open to interpretation, yet never noncommittal.
Desmet studied at the Municipal Academy of Fine Arts in Deinze, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, and Sint-Lucas Visual Arts in Ghent. His work is held in private collections in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the U.S., and Switzerland, and in public spaces in Belgium and the Netherlands.
