Berlinde De Bruyckere is a Belgian sculptor and draughtswoman born in Ghent in 1964, where she continues to live and work. Her sculptures combine wax, animal skins and hair, textiles, metal and wood to produce altered organic forms that can evoke human bodies, animals or tree limbs. Rather than offering literal figures, she uses fragmented anatomy and tactile surfaces to examine vulnerability, suffering, care and the need for protection. References to Flemish Renaissance painting, Christian iconography, classical mythology and cultural memory enter the work alongside contemporary events, creating a language in which tenderness and unease remain closely connected.
Her international career includes major museum exhibitions and Belgium’s pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, where she presented Kreupelhout – Cripplewood in collaboration with writer J. M. Coetzee. In 2026, Galleria Continua listed several solo projects, including Same Difference at Collezione Gori and Same Old, Same Old in San Gimignano. On 23 September 2026, Invitation with Michelangelo opened at Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno and is scheduled to run until 24 January 2027. Curated by Carlo Falciani, the exhibition places De Bruyckere’s visceral sculptural vocabulary in dialogue with Michelangelo’s fragile River God, connecting Florentine and Flemish approaches to the expressive body across five centuries.