De Bruyckere´s sculptures are testimonies to unique emotional depth. They touch with their vulnerability and melancholy, ranging between vitality and death, harmony and deformation, figurativeness and abstraction. They bear witness to visible and perceptible processes of transformation in human and animal life. Berlinde De Bruyckere endows them with an almost sacral aura.

In her work, the artist abundantly explores ancient mythologies and Christian themes and adapts them to the present that could not be more vivid. The palette ranges from the shell that forms a body, to its fragmentation, to fully formed corporeality. In the process, the subject of sexuality, especially the female sex, comes into the artist’s focus.

Published on occasion of the exhibition ‘Berlinde De Bruyckere: PEL / Becoming the figure’, 3 Jul 2022 – 8 Jan 2023, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen, Germany.

English and German text.