Mi Van Landuyt 1939-

Mi Van Landuyt received her artistic training at the Academy of Ghent, the HIGRO in Ghent, and the Higher Institute in Antwerp. Between 1967 and 1969, she was a member of the Ghent-based artists’ group Nieuwe Rococo, a collective aligned with the spirit of Pop Art and the “Flower Power” movement of the late 1960s. She subsequently settled in Landegem with her husband, Balder, where they jointly ran a screen-printing workshop renowned for the quality of its productions. Mi Van Landuyt’s work occupies a subtle position at the intersection of abstraction and figuration. Her paintings often originate in her immediate surroundings and in simple observations of everyday life, which serve as sources of personal emotions and impressions. However, references to the origins of these works remain deliberately discreet, at times even concealed, allowing viewers the freedom to project their own interpretations and construct meaning for themselves. From a formal perspective, her work recalls certain aspects of action painting, particularly within the lineage of Jackson Pollock, although her approach is distinguished by greater control and a more structured pictorial development. She intuitively employs a free, gestural painterly language rooted in abstract expressionism—an affinity that likely explains her personal connection to the work of Cy Twombly. Mi Van Landuyt’s practice is characterized by a constant tension between space and boundary, between object and void. The use of selective, often dominant colors contributes to the creation of a spatial dialogue within the composition.