Michael Van den Abeele (Belgian, b. 1974) lives and works in Brussels. His artistic practice includes painting and texts, as well as the creation of furniture, installations and animation films.

Michael Van den Abeele’s paintings function within the field of tension between abstraction and figuration: imitation, camouflage and style are recurring factors. Indirect or will seemingly aberrant strategies are often used in order to keep the act of painting a conscious one. Recurrent motifs in his work includes science fiction, exoticism and optical illusions, as well as paleontology and the dinosaur as an ‘artist’s impression’, all motives that had their origins in the latter half of the 19th century, on the eve of modernity.

Every six months, we invite a new artist to ‘engage’ with the white wall of the Beurs Café. In the spring of 2017, that artist is Michaël Van den Abeele. He has been preceded by Jóhanna Kristbjörg Sigurðardóttur, Fiona Mackay, Julien Meert, Denie Put, Nel Aerts & Atelier Pica Pica.