01 june 2026, Flor Linckens
The world according to Stief Desmet
Until 27 June, MPV Gallery in Oisterwijk is presenting a solo exhibition by Stief Desmet. The exhibition brings together a selection of recent paintings and sculptures by the Belgian artist. Desmet maintains an exceptionally multidisciplinary practice, working across painting, screen printing, sculpture, installation, video and performance. His visual language is driven by a search for new relationships between found objects, natural forms, archetypal and mythological figures, symbolic objects and references drawn from art history. In the works currently on view at MPV Gallery, motifs such as plants, animals, branches and silhouettes reappear time and again in ever-changing forms.
Desmet draws much of his inspiration from the everyday in the environment that surrounds him. This approach is rooted in a broader Flemish tradition that also includes artists such as Roger Raveel and Raoul De Keyser. Desmet's studio is located on a former pig farm in the Leie region of Belgium. At the same time, his practice has been shaped by extended periods abroad, including stays in Canada, Los Angeles, Italy and Asia, often as part of artist-in-residence programmes.
Desmet's studio is a place where images, (both organic and industrial) materials and ideas can coexist for long periods before finding their final form. He also draws inspiration from films, mythology, fairy tales and fables, old books, art history, collective memory and popular culture. These fragmented building blocks gradually evolve through a process marked by association, displacement and experimentation. The resulting works deliberately leave room for ambiguity, mystery and the viewer's own interpretation. Desmet does not primarily see himself as a painter or sculptor, but as an artist in the broadest sense. In his work, subject matter and meaning appear to take precedence over the medium or material chosen at any given moment.
Many of Desmet's works revolve around the complex and reciprocal relationship between humanity and nature. Rather than presenting this relationship as a simplistic or moralistic opposition between good and evil, he approaches it as a continuous process of exchange and interaction. His works reflect a consumer-driven society in which we attempt to bend nature to our will, yet never fully succeed. At the same time, they reveal a longing for something more natural, instinctive or even utopian. Desmet counterbalances that impulse with deliberate irregularities and a dose of irony, ensuring that the resulting landscapes never become passive or idyllic. Additionally, his bronze sculptures that have been installed outdoors are actively shaped by nature through rain, wind and oxidation, as well as by the physical touch of passers-by. His work also addresses themes of loss, vulnerability, renewal and transience. By continually connecting the personal with the universal, Desmet seeks to create images that capture a broader human experience.
Stief Desmet was born in 1973 in Deinze, Belgium, and studied at the LUCA School of Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. His work has been included in the collection of S.M.A.K., among others, and was shown at Kunstenfestival Watou, the Kortrijk Triennial and De Brakke Grond in Amsterdam. His work is also permanently part of public spaces across Belgium, the Netherlands and France.
