meet Christel

Christel Van Hemelrijck is a Belgian artist whose work reflects on the complexity of human experience. Working within abstract expressionism, she explores memory, emotion and transformation through colour, texture and the interplay of presence and absence.

Her paintings develop through an intuitive process of building, removing and revealing. Layers of colour and transparency interact with more gestural marks and textured surfaces, creating a sense of depth and movement. Working with different techniques, she allows the painting to evolve, sometimes concealing what came before, sometimes bringing earlier elements back to the surface.

Light has gradually become an increasingly important element in her work. It moves through the layers, shifts the perception of colour and opens up spaces within the composition. Depending on how colours and surfaces meet, light can reveal or obscure, create tension or bring a moment of clarity. It is not simply a visual effect, but part of the way a painting unfolds and changes in the eye of the viewer.

Her work is informed by observations of nature, movement, places and human connections. These impressions find their way into a visual language that moves between the tangible and the elusive, inviting associations rather than offering fixed interpretations. Each series develops from a different starting point, while remaining part of an ongoing exploration of what lies beneath the surface and what emerges through the act of painting.

Through her work, Van Hemelrijck continues to explore how colour, material and light can hold traces of experience, allowing something new to emerge from what is already there.