Dries Ketels is an artist and poet based in Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium who explores various media as a means to negotiate notions of performance and authorship. Ketels recently spent time with watercolor that culminated into a temperature-dependent crystallization process. This time-based method, introduces a new way of working with watercolor paint even if it is ephemeral: “Since the art world is trying to leave painting behind, I wanted to try and make paintings that would function.”

While making his new series titled “Witnessed Winter” (2016-7) the artist sought to create the essence of a winter feeling that was not necessarily embodied in a visual representation, as seen in details like color, symbol and form, but equally embodied in the methods used to paint. This search ends with the sense of a winter feeling that is found within the material fact of the painting. Unlike traditional landscape representations, Dries Ketels moves away from particular figurative motifs that merely echo a common perception of winter. Instead he embeds crystal structures into the painting’s surface lending animation to an otherwise static atmosphere.

From 2011 to 2015 Dries Ketels studied the science of art at the University of Ghent and the Free University of Berlin. During that time, his art appeared in several group exhibitions that took place in Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. In October 2014 Ketels participated in a group exhibition that was hosted by Chie Art Gallery, located in Milan, Italy. This was followed by two more shows that took place at Museo Marte in Campania, Italy and then at the Marzia Frozen Gallery of Berlin, Germany. Ketels was also finalist for the 2014 Celeste Prize with “From Ashes to Ashes”. Since then the artist has received first place recognition in TUUËBETEGOARE, a 2015 group exhibition that took place in Zomergem, Belgium. Beautiful/Decay magazine also profiled Dries Ketels in a piece titled “Lightning Strikes: Artist Uses Electricity To Create Captivating Portraits” by Genista. On March 8th, 2017 the artist will participate in HeForShe Arts Week, hosted by the United Nations.