Alex De Bruycker

Alex De Bruycker (b. Belgium) is a self-taught artist whose work centers on the dynamic relationship between light, color, and spatial architecture. His artistic journey began at the end of 2017 through an unexpected process: he started to hand-paint over his own photographic prints. Rather than employing digital manipulation, De Bruycker brushed thin layers of acrylic directly onto the images, creating a translucent veil that partially concealed and partially revealed the underlying photograph.

This act — simple yet transformative — became the conceptual and material seed of his entire practice. The veil suggested a space between presence and disappearance, between color and air. Seeking a surface that could hold this transparency without the interruption of photographic imagery, De Bruycker moved away from photography and discovered mesh polyester: a porous, luminous material that allows light to permeate the painting.

From this moment, his visual language evolved rapidly.

De Bruycker now constructs subtle chromatic fields where forms float, drift, or gently intersect within a calm architectural framework. Working with acrylic on mesh polyester, he builds transparent layers that shift with daylight, turning perception into an active part of the work. His influences range from minimalist architecture — particularly the serene spatiality of Claudio Silvestrin — to the emotional resonance of Mark Rothko and the structural clarity of Imi Knoebel.

Across his major bodies of work — Enigma, Transendencia, Intervention of Color Space, and Drifting Thoughts — the same fundamental principle recurs: the transformation of color into space, and space into slow, perceptual motion.

Transendencia emerges as a natural evolution from Alex De Bruycker’s earlier, more geometric compositions. In Cento Moduli -denim blue, green, coral on yellow -  for example color blocks floated against luminous yellow ground, revealing a structural tension between form and field. In Transendencia, that geometry dissolves into light itself.Yet traces of these earlier hues persist — faint flickers subtly resurfacing within the yellow field, like echoes of remembered light. Form is no longer constructed but sensed — appearing as if breathed into being. The series marks a quiet yet decisive shift: from painting as composition to painting as perception. De Bruycker no longer builds space; he lets it unfold through transparency, chance, and light — transforming material into atmosphere, and structure into suspension.

Alex De Bruycker’s Enigma series can be seen as a prelude to the meditative clarity of Transendencia. In these works, the geometry is more tangible. Layers of translucent paint create depth without declaring it; light seems to seep through the surface, suggesting that meaning lies not in what is shown, but in what slowly emerges. Enigma names the painter’s fascination with the thresholds between seeing and not seeing, between structure and dissolution. In this series, De Bruycker begins to treat painting not as an image, but as a field of perception, where light, material, and chance interact beyond conscious control. The later Transendencia works carry this search further — the enigma remains, but it has become lighter, more fluid, more attuned to breath and presence. Where Enigma evokes the mystery of form, Transendencia reveals the mystery of light itself.

Intervention of Color Space marks an early and defining stage in Alex De Bruycker’s artistic journey. In this series, he explores how color can shape space — not merely as surface, but as a structural and perceptual field. Subtle tensions between planes, intervals of light, and pauses of emptiness reveal a growing sensitivity to rhythm, silence, and balance. The series anticipates many of the qualities that would later reappear in Enigma, Drifting Thoughts, and Transendencia: openness, vibration, and the quiet interplay between material presence and immaterial light.

In retrospect, Drifting Thoughts reads as the origin of De Bruycker’s visual language. The title itself foreshadows what follows — a gradual drift from thought and form toward light and transcendence.

Today, De Bruycker’s paintings are exhibited and collected internationally. His current solo exhibition, Transparency in Motion, presented at Amélie du Chalard on Mercer Street in Manhattan, marks a significant moment in the refinement and expansion of his chromatic and spatial research. 

Born in 1968, Ghent (B), Lives and works in Maarkedal, Belgium.