Elise Willems
Elise Willems (°1993, Aalst, Belgium), lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.
Elise Willems earned her degree in Architecture from the University of LUCA school of arts before studying a degree Fine Arts at Sint-Lucas Antwerp. In addition to her individual practice, Willems is a member of the artist collective ZIJspoor, which organizes artist-run exhibitions in Antwerp.
Elise Willems' work explores the interplay between the physical and the digital within a
phygital practice. Drawing on her background in architecture and visual arts, she approaches art as a spatial and material construction in which digital processes and analog techniques complement and interrogate each other.
Digital images and virtual 3D drawings often form the starting point of her work. These immaterial objects are deconstructed and translated into paintings, shifting scale, function, and meaning. What begins as a digital object can transform into a landscape, an architectural fragment of an autonomous form. This creates a visual language that breaks free from recognizable reality and opens up an alternative, imaginary world.
In her work, organic substitutes, such as flowers and natural structures, merge with abstract
and architectural forms. Digital objects, which originally lacked taste, acquire texture, weight, and physical presence through painting and ceramics. The tension between digital
perfection and manual imperfection remains visible.
A key element of Willems' practice is the integration of ceramic sculpture into paintings.
By adding ceramic elements, the surface is opened up, creating a dialogue between two- and three-dimensionality. Motifs extend beyond the canvas and occupy space, merging
painting and sculpture.
The work allows the viewer to dream away in a colorful, layered world, but simultaneously invites them to reflect on a rapidly changing reality in which the digital is increasingly pervasive. This creates space for reflection on what is tangible, substantial, and factual, and what, in fact, eludes fixed forms and surprises.
