MF059, 2024

Mathieu Leenaert   Emerging artists

Born in 1983, Mathieu Leenaert lives and works in Knokke-Heist, Belgium.
Hailing from the Flemish countryside, he has always felt the need to explore the back roads. After studying economics in Bruges, he turned to the philosophy of art and aesthetics at the University of Helsinki, before obtaining a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Ghent in 2004.

Alongside his studies, he embarked on a personal artistic exploration, experimenting with various mediums – from spray paint to ink and needles – in an exploration of societal and artistic boundaries. This approach led him to practice tattooing for several years, initially traveling from place to place, then from a private studio on the Belgian coast.

For nearly two decades, Mathieu developed a style based on monochrome, realistic, and geometric images. But faced with the increasing assimilation of a once subversive subculture by the dominant culture, he felt a need for a break. This tension led him to a true artistic "reset." Without formal training in visual arts, he returned to spray painting, in an instinctive and liberated gesture, as a reaction against the superficiality and pseudo-individualization of a contemporary culture saturated with digital technology.

His large, meditative canvases, constructed with subtle gradations, present themselves as spaces of silence and suspension. Through what he calls "radical abstraction"—a rejection of any identifiable form, any narrative subject, and the absence of explanatory titles—Mathieu invites a raw encounter with color and light. This refusal of immediate interpretation seeks to elicit an authentic, almost contemplative experience, a counterpoint to the instantaneity and quantification omnipresent in our societies.

His practice thus falls within the realm of an attempt to put his philosophical convictions into plastic form: a constant search for a balanced tension between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, in an autonomous and silent work of art.

Since August 2025, Mathieu Leenaert has been represented by Galerie Outsiders.