Valerie De Smedt (BE, 1999)
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Valerie De Smedt (°1999)
Valerie De Smedt’s practice explores the almost dreamlike boundary between reality and imagination through painting. The medium allows her to make atmosphere, time, and emotion tangible. Using traditional techniques—layering, glazing, working from an underdrawing and grisaille, and chiaroscuro—she aims to render light, darkness, and material presence perceptible. Cinematic influences enable her to capture moments of anticipation: just before or just after an event. The uncanny is central to her work: images that are simultaneously familiar and estranging. The slowness of the process ensures that a painting is never fully fixed; layers continue to show through, glows shift. This creates a contemplative space where reality, mysticism, and imagination converge, inviting the viewer to slow down and fully experience the tension of the moment.
