About | artblondiau

About

Blondiau studied painting at the Art Academy of Braine-l’Alleud and at La Cambre in Brussels as a free student, alongside academic studies in development. After fifteen years in London, he has been based in the Netherlands since 2020.

Landscape is central to his work—not as a motif, but as a way of engaging with perception and presence. Rather than depicting a scene, his paintings seek to draw the viewer into an active exchange, inviting them to inhabit the space rather than observe it from a distance.

Blondiau works on panels, at times in a vertical format that echoes the East Asian screen and scroll tradition and serves to open the pictorial space rather than contain it within a single frame. His practice often involves a subtractive process: beginning from a darkened surface, the image is gradually revealed through incision and abrasion. The method, however, is not limited to erasure. He also builds surfaces through successive layers of paint, working with subdued, muted colours in which differences of light and dark—rather than shifts in hue—determine the structure of the image.

His work has been selected for the Summer Exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, United Kingdom.

In 2025, Blondiau was accepted as a member of Pulchri Studio in The Hague, an artists’ association with a long tradition in maritime and landscape painting.

A personal view on art

I often try to define for myself what art really is. The definition I use is quite simple. For me, art is a form of knowledge. But it is not the kind of knowledge we obtain through concepts, theories, or explanations. It is a knowledge that comes through perception and experience. I tend to think that a work of art is successful when it allows the viewer to discover something about reality that they had not noticed before. For this reason I often say that art helps us become more aware of the world and of our own existence within it.

Of course, the knowledge produced by art is not the same as scientific or technological knowledge. A painting will not build a bridge or cure a disease. But this does not mean it is less useful. Its usefulness is simply different. What art can do — and what I believe it does at its best — is help us remain anchored in the world. In a time of constant information, digital images, and permanent stimulation, it is easy to lose a direct connection with reality. Art, at least the kind of art that interests me, helps us return to that connection. It invites us to experience the world again through our senses: light, space, atmosphere, presence.

I believe this role of art may become even more important in the future.

Artificial intelligence is already generating enormous amounts of information and images. In such a landscape, the value of art may lie precisely in the fact that it remains rooted in human perception and experience. For this reason, I do not believe art is disappearing. On the contrary, I think its importance may grow.

Art may remain one of the rare places where human beings can still discover something about reality through their own perception, and where knowledge remains deeply and irreducibly human.

Current shows

Pulchri Studio Voorjaarssalon & Jacob Hartog Prijs 2026 The Hage, Netherlands
Klarelijn, Leiden, Netherlands
Montulet galerie, The Hage, Netherlands
Kuko Show, Katwijk, Netherlands

Past shows

Blondiau exhibited in galleries in London (Hicks Gallery, Cavaliero Finn Gallery, Gagliardy Gallery), Brussels (Arthus Gallery, Galerie Chapitre 12) and in Netherlands (Montulet Gallery, Mokum Gallery) and in several art fairs. In 2014 paintings of Blondiau were selected for an exhibition of the Dulwich Picture Gallery (London) and shortlisted for a prize. In 2018, the London County House commissioned two large paintings currently on permanent show. In 2023 and 2024 paintings of Blondiau were selected by the London Royal Academy of Arts for their Summer shows. Paintings of Blondiau are in several private collections.

Solo and group Exhibitions

2026:Naarden Art Fair (B. Claassen Fine Art)

2025: Naarden Art Fair(B. Claassen Fine Art); Katwijk Museum

2024: Royal Academy of Arts (London) Summer show; Mokum Gallery (Amsterdam) AAF; Naarden Art Fair (BCLaassen Fine Art) ; Alliance Francaise (The Haag)

2023: Gallery Zone, Leiden, The Netherlands. Royal Academy of Arts (London) 2023 summer show

2022 : Arthus Gallery- Brussels, Belgium

2022: Katwijk Museum, Netherlands

2018: London County Hall - London, United Kingdom

2014: Dulwich Picture Gallery - London, United Kingdom

2013: JP art Gallery , Batersea, United Kingdom

2012: Cavalierofinn Gallery / AAF - London, United Kingdom

2009: Gallery Bergamoff - Brussels, Belgium

2008: Hicks Gallery - Wimbledon, United Kingdom

2007: Gagliardi gallery - London, United Kingdom

2006: Quantum gallery - London AAF - london, United Kingdom

2005: Quantum gallery - London AAF - London, United Kingdom