Steven Baelen (°1981) is a draftsman living and working in Ghent, Belgium. With a practice rooted in a passion to delineate his intimate surroundings with pencil, he has come to understand drawing in all its fragility and ephemerality. He has been using these values in order to enforce the power that a drawing tool can produce. These works offer a close look at domesticity void of humans, while at the same time becoming a playground where the identities of the different strokes interplay and exchange their roles, with a deliberate lack of resolution. As a result, the drawings melt and merge in one’s psyche, not on the page.
Steven Baelen is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts [KASK] in Ghent (2006) and the Higher Institute of Fine Arts [HISK] in Ghent (2010). He is also an alumnus of the JUNGE AKADEMIE (2011), where he developed his artist book DER RAUM IM VERZUG, which included an invitation to copy pages 7 to 54 onto a single sheet of paper. The Junge Akademie is part of the Berlin Akademie der Künste, one of Europe’s oldest cultural institutes. In 2014, Baelen was shortlisted for the MAC International Prize, where he created a wall drawing exploring both real and imagined physical spaces. The MAC International is the largest arts prize in Ireland and one of the most prestigious in the UK. In 2016, he was awarded the ARTS laureateship from the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts [KVAB], recognizing his promising contribution to the arts. Baelen’s work is regularly featured in solo and group exhibitions across Belgium and abroad. He has worked with galleries, including Nosbaum Reding (Luxembourg), Annie Gentils (Antwerp), and Levy Delval (Brussels). His work is held in both private and public collections. He is currently represented by Studio23 in Ghent, while his commitment to drawing also extends to teaching at the Academy of Mechelen.