Berlinde De Bruyckere (born 1964) is a Belgian

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...

ist. De Bruyckere specializes in sculpture in various media including wax, wood, wool, horse skin and hair, though she also works in

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

, and since the early 1990s many of her major works have featured structures involving blankets. Their use is symbolic both of warmth and shelter, and of the vulnerable circumstances such as wars that make people seek such shelter. In 2000, De Bruyckere's work with five dead horses, ''In Flanders Fields'', a commentary on

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, was exhibited at the

In Flanders Fields Museum The In Flanders Fields Museum is a museum in Ypres (Ieper), Belgium, dedicated to the study of the First World War. It occupies the second floor of the Cloth Hall (Lakenhalle) on the market square in the city centre. The building was largely dest ...

Ypres Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality c ...

. In 2006, her work was included in the 4th

Berlin Biennial The Berlin Biennale (full name: Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art) is a contemporary art exhibition, which has been held at various locations in Berlin, Germany, every two to three years since 1998. T ...

for Contemporary Art and exhibited in a two-artist show at the

Kunsthalle Düsseldorf Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Düsseldorf. Building The present art centre was built in 1967 in Brutalist architecture by the architects Konrad Beckmann and Brockes. They used commercially available preca ...

. At the 2013

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

, her sculptures were shown in the Belgian Pavilion. De Bruyckere solo exhibitions include

La Maison Rouge La Maison Rouge was a private contemporary art Foundation dedicated mainly to showing private art collections, monographic shows of contemporary artists' work. It was located close to the Bastille, in Paris, at 10 Boulevard de la Bastille in the 12 ...

, Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris (2005); the

De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art De Pont Museum is a contemporary art museum in Tilburg, North Brabant, the Netherlands. De Pont has been named after the attorney and businessman Jan de Pont (1915-1987), whose estate provided for the establishment of a foundation to stimulate con ...

Tilburg Tilburg () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern province of North Brabant. With a population of 222,601 (1 July 2021), it is the second-largest city or municipality in North Brabant after Eindhoven and the seventh-larg ...

(2005); ''The Mystery of the Body: Berlinde De Bruyckere in Dialogue with Lucas Cranach and Pier Paolo Pasonli,'' the Kunstmuseum Bern; and ''We are all Flesh'' at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2012). In 2015 she received an honorary doctorate from

Ghent University Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Bruyckere, Berlinde 1964 births Living people 20th-century Belgian sculptors 21st-century Belgian sculptors 20th-century Belgian women artists 21st-century Belgian women artists Belgian women sculptors