About

Mathieu V. Staelens (°1980) makes the world falter. His works strike out, they confront our imagination. He literally turns our social reality inside out, to demolish its narrow borders and mental fortresses. Here too, the theme of identity is in the foreground, but as the narrow straitjacket imposed on us today by fashionable patterns of thought and behaviour. Staelens performs an alienating détournement in his works. He injects into his images something contrary and inappropriate. This prevents us from seeing them as mirror images of our world. Bizarrely, this is not oppressive, but emancipating. As if here we develop an aversion to the old and learn a new interest. A cultivating of a deeper awareness of what it means to belong to the world. 

Lauren Van Middelem 

Personal note

Art to me, being an artist, is making sense of things with images. Images are tricky in many ways and truthful at the same time. 

Images are like words, they can offend you as well as seduce, they can misguide you as well as enlighten. Conceptually as technically they’re layered if we talk about painting. Apart from the history the medium carries, it still holds a lot of potency for imagining the future. 

It’s imagination, diligently exploring the possible. It’s expression, fearlessly exploring my inner world. It’s creating meaning through observation and experience. The technical is fused with the energy that operates my body. I trust my hands more and more to paint without my supervision, to simply feel how to push the paint around. 

My body of work mostly ventures around the creation of motives, a state of affairs I am currently synthesising is the idea of a Post-Woke humanism. A still to be realised paradigm of human interconnection and interdependency that gives us all access to a more sustainable mindset and approach to life and the world as a whole. I am an undercover idealist, undercover because I want to root it into facts and psychological truths we still need to assimilate to create a future where the lower-self’s, or the conditioned-self’s loose their grip on the world. A future where freedom goes hand in hand with responsibility. 

Mathieu V. Staelens, Antwerp, september 2025

Curriculum Vitae

Mathieu V. Staelens 

Geboren te Oostende, 1980

Leeft en werkt in Antwerpen

Mobiel : +32477284645

Mail: hello@mathieuvstaelens.be

Education

2002 Meester in de Schilderkunst, Antwerpen

2003 Academie Gent in samenwerking met Universiteit 

Gent (vakgroep Kunstwetenschappen, Architectuur en Stedebouw, Analytische Chemie) en het SMAK, posthogeschoolopleiding behoudsmedewerker actuele kunst

2005 Universiteit Antwerpen,Wijsbegeerte

Solo shows

2025   “Inner Struggle is Relatable, Perfection is Not”, Art Partout Gallery Antwerp (B)

2024   “SUSTAINABLE Love 4 Life”, Art Partout Gallery Antwerp (B)

2023   “Celebrating our new found innocence”, Galerie Seghers Ostend (B) 

2016   “What happens here, stays here”, Think Jazzy, Antwerpen (B) 

2012   “Chester Shrine”, kissinger @ MKHA Antwerpen (B)

2011   “Saturated voices”, Freemen Gallery, Ardenburg (NL)

2009   “La Trahison de l’Ordre, diabolic formalism from 1935 and counting”, RhoK, Brussel (B)

2008   “Expressing the void”, Grusenmeyer Art Gallery, duo met Amparo Sard, Deurle (B).

2008   “Intrude: art & Life 366, Zendai MoMA: “Abstract painting based on the lives of    

           others”,  Shanghai Issue, Zendai MoMA, Shanghai (C)

2008   “L.A.T., facts of life”, Monty ABN-ruimte, December, Antwerpen (B)

2007   “Aesthetic mystifications of a new world order”, Force-de-l’image #1, Labo+, 

            Existentie, Acec-domein Gent between 7pm&11pm (B)

2007   “Aesthetic mystifications of a new world order”, Force-de-l’image #2, Labo+, 

           Existentie, Acec-domein Gent between 7pm&11pm (B)

Group shows

2025   “Het skeletmotief van Ensor tot heden”, Ensorhuis Oostende (B)

2025   “Fungi”, Parce Art Initiative, Ghent (B)

2025   “Misc 25”, private collector group show, Diksmuide (B)

2024   “KNOKKE Turned ON”, Lauren Van Middelem Gallery (B)

2023   “Eskapismus”, Shame gallery Brussels (B)

2022   “Between the folds of reality”, Black swan gallery Bruges (B)

2022   “Trauma Fauna”, Shame gallery Brussels (B)

2021   “Pretty Ugly”, Shame gallery Brussels (B)

2021   “Subbacultcha” @destudio during Antwerp Art Weekend, Antwerp (B)  

2019   “Drawing ALB”, Galerie ALB Paris (FR)

2016   “Arture X de filatuur///Artspace Knokke, Knokke (B) 

2016   “Setting the scene”, Factor 44, Antwerpen (B)

2016   “Multitude: Vol van genade”, Kasteel Sterckshof, Antwerpen (B)

2014   “Oostends Paviljoen 2014”, Venetiaanse Gaanderijen, Oostende (B)

2012   “Expo Delvaux”, Gent (B)

2010   “Polar Exposition”, Gent (B)

2010   “Mars op Oostende”, MuZEE, Oostende (B)

2009   “Passionele moord”, reizende tentoonstelling: Leuven (stadhuis) and Doornik (Maison de la culture), september ’09 tot maart 2010, in het kader van de tentoonstelling :  “Rogier Van der Weyden” in  Museum M Leuven (B)

2009   “ A Starting Point: Intrude 366 —Dynamics of change and growth, from 1, Jan. to 31,    

            Dec”, Zendai MoMA Shanghai (C)

2009   “Globalocal”: Bellevue Brewery, Brussel (B)

2009   “Salon du dessin contemporain”, Grusenmeyer Art Gallery, Paris (FR)

2009   “Art Brussels”, April, Grusenmeyer Art Gallery, Brussel (B)

2008   “Gery Christmas Show”, Maes & Matthys gallery, Antwerpen (B)

2007   “Group 2”, Maes & Matthys gallery, Antwerp (B).

2006    “M.O.B.” (Met Onbekende Bestemming) + lancering M.O.B.magazine, ex – Extra 

            City, Antwerpen (B)

2006    “Things that appear are less ‘present’ than one would think”, Labo #2, Existentie, 

             Acec-domein Ghent (B)

2006    “A la recherche de l’image perdue”, 85 Gallery, Antwerpen (B)

2006   “Group 1”, Maes & Matthys gallery, Antwerpen (B)

2005   “After Nature”, Aeroplastics Gallery, Brussel (B)

2004   “Excessoire”, Factor 44, Antwerpen (B)

Art Fairs

2022   “Brafa”, Galerie Seghers Oostende (B)

2019   “Pulse art Miami”, Galerie ALB Paris, (USA)

2019   “Galeristes”, Galerie ALB, Paris, (FR)

2009   “Salon du dessin contemporain”, Grusenmeyer Art Gallery, Parijs (FR)

2009   “Art Brussels”, Grusenmeyer Art Gallery, Brussel (B)

Private collections

Martial Raysse (FR)

Liedts-Meesen (BE)

F. Leemans (BE)

Van Laer (USA)

e.a.

Public collections

Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art

Text/Reviews

* Interview door Wouter van de Koot voor de expo: “Setting the scene”, Factor 44, Antwerpen

* Cover Roman van Xu Zechen: “Rennend door Bejing”, 2015, uitgeverij De Geus, Nederland

* M.Verminck (RED.), Genereusiteit, Sint-Lucas Brussel, 2012 (medeauteur)

* M.Verminck (RED.), De ‘plaats’ van de kunst, Sint-lucas Brussel, 2010 (medeauteur)

* Uit: <H>art #17, pag 26, (B)

* Review by Laura McLean-Ferris artreview.com, 2008 (GB)

* Intrude Magazine #4, Interview, pag. 11-19, Shanghai Zendai MoMA, Shanghai, (C), 2008

* V. von G, Things that appear are less ‘present’ than one would think, in: Cesteleyn Ann, De Block Bart, Scherlippens Björn (RED.), Labo’s #1-3, Gent, 2007

* V. von G, Aesthetic mystifications of a new world order, Force-de-l’image #1, in: Cesteleyn Ann, De Block Bart, Scherlippens Björn (RED.), Labo’s #1-3, Gent, 2007

* M.O.B.magazine, the D.I.Y. issue, #1, sep., 2006, (B)

* De huisarts, 20 december, Nr.857, pag. 31, 2007, (B)