Fred Michiels

As a painter, Michiels has developed an idiosyncratic practice centred on what takes place between recognition and abstraction. His visual language draws on painting, drawing, architecture, music, art history and fragments of everyday life, which he continually transforms. Images are not reproduced, but taken apart, layered, interrupted and reassembled, until their original meaning gives way to rhythm, colour and movement. His paintings constantly draw the eye between what appears on the surface and what seems to lie hidden beneath it.



In This is Where I left Myself, this tension between concealment and revelation, between surface and depth, becomes a central concern. Historical references, architectural memories and personal impressions are no longer recognisable as images; they remain present as traces within the painting, transformed into rhythm, structure and colour.



The new works take their starting point in journeys and walks through Brussels, Vienna, Paris and Sète, as well as in memories of a forest in Brittany. During these travels, Michiels made drawings and gathered visual impressions of architecture and its ornamentation: the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau, the organic forms of Victor Horta and Hector Guimard, and...

1983-1988 Sint Lucas in Antwerp
1995-1996 Cooper Union NYC

I have been exhibiting almost everywhere in Europe since 1999
the most important ones are the art fairs in Cologne, Berlin, Rotterdam, The Hague, Luxembourg and Brussels.


2002-2004 Annie gentils Gallery, Antwerp
2005-2007 Ottilia Pribilla Gallery, Antwerp
2009-2024 Eva Steynen Gallery, Antwerp
2017-2024 The Office of Useless Art (nomadic gallery in europe)
2017 Art Köln
2019-2022 Positions Berlin
2023-2024 Art on Paper Brussels
2023 Artweek Luxembourg
2024 CAS Ostend
2024 Stichting Pim De Rudder Assenede (B)
2026 Museum of the small format, Nismes (B)