About | artblondiau

About

Blondiau studied painting at the Art Academy of Braine-l’Alleud and at the Brussels visual art school La Cambre as a free student, alongside his studies in development . From 1992 to 2000 he worked in the field of development in Uzbekistan, Austria, Latvia and Colombia. He then lived for fifteen years in London before moving to the Netherlands in 2020. His focus for many years has been the landscape—not as a decorative motif, but as a way to question the divide between subject and object.

For me, a landscape is not an object “out there” to be observed. When I paint, the usual divide between subject and object collapses. The work grows out of a kind of fusion with the painted landscape, a state where the boundary between the one who looks and the thing looked at disappears. That is what I try to bring into the finished painting. I do not want the viewers to look at a scene from a safe distance. I want them to feel themselves inside it, caught in the same exchange. The landscape isn’t passive; it acts on us. When we stop treating nature as something separate from us, something essential becomes visible again.

Some of my works connect with the spirit of shanshui — the Chinese landscape tradition where mountains, water, and mist form not a scene to depict, but a world to enter. In shanshui, the landscape is inseparable from the viewer’s experience of moving through it. This is also how I approach painting. I begin from a darkened surface and draw the image out by removing paint, allowing light to emerge. Instead of constructing the scene by accumulation, I reveal it by subtraction. Forms flicker into view, dissolve, and return — always on the threshold of becoming. The landscape seems to breathe rather than settle into a fixed picture. Emptiness plays a crucial role. The areas left unresolved or undefined are not voids to correct but spaces of possibility — air, distance, and silence. They let the eye explore, complete, and inhabit the image.

Exhibitions

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

2024: Royal Academy of Arts (London) 2024 summer show

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