Knokke-Heist, Belgium
These are not printed, not editioned and not made in a series. Each canvas is built, layered and framed by hand in the studio on the Belgian coast — and the surface is meant to be seen up close.
The studio
Nothing arrives ready-made. The stretcher frames are assembled here, the canvas is pulled over them and prepared by hand, and only then does the painting begin.
It is a working space rather than a showroom — timber, tools, canvases leaning against the wall at every stage. Visitors are welcome by appointment.
01
The canvas is built up before anything is painted. Acrylic gels, sand and modelling paste are worked into the weave in successive layers, left to set, then worked again — which is what gives the finished surface its relief.
02
Colour goes on in thin passes over that ground. Nothing is opaque. Depth comes from what shows through, not from what is laid on top, and a canvas can take weeks of passes before it settles.
03
Every work is framed in cedar. The canvas sits back inside the moulding, held by a shadow gap, so the painting reads as an object rather than a picture stuck to a board.
04
Each piece is signed on the back and leaves with a certificate naming the work, the year and the first owner. Nothing is printed, editioned or reproduced.
On the wall
A canvas only settles once it hangs. Seen at full scale, side by side and in daylight, the colour and relief read the way they were meant to.
The relief, the grain, the way light catches the ridges — none of it survives a screen. Come to the studio, or ask for a video of any canvas filmed in daylight.