Escaping into light
Kevin Douillez (b. July 1990) is a self-taught visual artist whose work explores an intimate, physical dialogue with matter. Based in southern Brussels, he has exhibited internationally in cities such as Brussels, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Madrid.
Drawn to raw materials since childhood, Douillez expresses inner tensions through an instinctive and forceful creative process. The act of painting becomes both an embrace and a release, channeling emotional turbulence into layered compositions. Acrylic paint is projected, slashed, and shattered across large cotton canvases, seeking harmony within disorder.
His abstract imagination takes the form of a purgatory — a space where vulnerability, instability, sadness, and anxiety are transformed into a structured silence. Painting, for him, is a meditative and emotional journey toward light.
Each canvas is carefully chosen for its ability to absorb the energy of the gesture, serving as a field for confrontation between spirit and material. The resulting works resemble visual diaries, where intimate struggles are transmuted and anonymized, allowing the artist to coexist with past pain.
Though visually luminous and seductive, these pieces emerge from a deeply spiritual context. Their titles remain elusive, offering no narrative anchor. Instead, what lingers are the residues of catharsis and the music echoing through the studio.
Without adhering to a serial approach, Douillez’s practice revolves around recurring themes: nature, repetition, the threshold of another world. The act of painting itself becomes central — a ritual of mindfulness, a search for peace, and a way of giving form to the haunting visions that inhabit him. These visions, persistent and compelling, guide his every gesture, offering moments of serenity amid chaos.
— Anthony Spiegeler
The artist Kevin Douillez is represented by the Brachot Gallery and NWB in Belgium.
