The "Mar I.A." series

Mar I.A. *M20260110
Mixed media / Canvas
120 X 80 cm (47 X 31 In)
2026

In an era when artificial intelligence generates representations of our most uninhibited “prompts” at unimaginable speeds, I present this series of paintings, part of the Punk Baroque painting series which—without my realizing it at the time—I had already begun in 1998.

That year, I produced a portrait of my school friend Marie as part of an analog photography laboratory course. This image now serves as the point of departure for a new body of work, reconfigured into painterly compositions and interwoven with figures, hairstyles, clothing, and other motifs drawn from diverse art-historical movements.

Copied again and again, the facial features drawn from the same photographic source inevitably change with each human “print.”

Through this process, the work pays homage to the academy as an institution, while simultaneously integrating elements from my own personal history. The academic tradition and the autobiographical narrative intersect, generating a space in which learned conventions and lived experience coexist and inform one another.

Situated between personal biography and mass-produced imagery, the project does not seek merely to depict a woman repeatedly. Rather, it examines how the figure of “the subject” is constructed, and how identity is mediated through memory and repetition. The result is an iconostasis, assembled from fragments of intimacy and sustained by the lingering presence of personal myth.

The series employs simple, austere, and basic materials—perhaps even those associated with childhood—such as colored pencils and graphite on raw canvas. Each surface is prepared with a single sealing layer, intentionally preserving fingerprints, traces, and imperfections that bear witness to the physical process of making.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis.

Mar I.A. *M20260112
Mixed media / Canvas
120 X 80 cm (47 X 31 In)
2026

Mar I.A. *M20260114

Mixed media / Canvas

60 X 45 cm (24 X 18 In)

2026

A friendly description of that time:

At the end of 1998, I moved from the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts to the one in Tournai Belgium, but I still visited my friends in Brussels on a monthly basis.

During a party with friends from the studio, I took this photo on analog film of my dear friend Marie during some interlude.

Film Photography
Bruxelles Be. 1998

When I finally developed the negative, I found Marie's face, but after all, an expression that, in my opinion, reflects the myths and the passion of the passage through the academy of arts. In her eyes, I “read” images of Victor Horta, the Venus of Willendorf, Alphonse Mucha, The Bosh, the Mayas and of course, to my grandfather and great-great-grandfather, wise jewelers of the last century.