Berlinde De Bruyckere

Berlinde De Bruyckere is a Belgian visual artist born in 1964 in Ghent, Belgium. She grew up in the working-class district of Muide in Ghent and studied monumental arts at the Saint-Luc school in Ghent.

Berlinde de Bruyckere is notably known for the “blanket men”: vulnerable bodies represented with a blanket over their heads, suffocating and protective at the same time. Vulnerability, ephemeral and loneliness are the recurring themes of his work. She also often treats the bodies of horses, but also deformed bodies and trees. His works are often controversial when they are released, such as his sculptures of female bodies floating on water or his dead horses hanging in trees which create excitement and disgust.

In 2000, his work In Flanders Fields, a critique of the First World War, was exhibited at the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. In 2003, on the occasion of the Venice Biennale, where she exhibited The Black Horse, the sculpture of a deformed horse body without eyes, she met international success and her creations were acquired by major museums in Belgium. and abroad.

In 2007, she carried out monumental work at the Simonis metro station in Brussels. The same year, she exhibited her work in the beguinage church in Sint-Truiden. In 2013, she was appointed to exhibit at the Belgian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale.