Image: Bendt Eyckermans, Lost Emblems, 2025. Oil on linen, 71 x 59 cm. © Courtesy of the artist
S.M.A.K. in Ghent will present ‘Bendt Eyckermans’, the first institutional solo exhibition in Belgium devoted to the Antwerp painter, from 31 October 2026 to 21 February 2027. The exhibition will bring together a broad selection of paintings characterised by a dreamlike and mysterious atmosphere, combining elements from the artist’s immediate surroundings with echoes of art history.
The presentation forms part of S.M.A.K.’s autumn 2026 exhibition programme at its site on Jan Hoetplein in Ghent. The museum, whose full name is the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, is dedicated to modern and contemporary art and maintains a collection of art from 1945 to the present. Its programme includes both international artists and figures connected to Belgium’s artistic scene.
Eyckermans, born in Antwerp in 1994, works with a subdued palette and gives his paintings a pronounced sense of texture and depth. According to S.M.A.K., his canvases often possess a sculptural dimension. This quality is connected to the artist’s family history: he comes from five generations of sculptors and craftspeople, and the sculptures and collected objects left by previous generations remain in the studio where he works, formerly used by his predecessors.
The museum describes these inherited forms and objects as resonating subtly through Eyckermans’s paintings. His practice also draws directly on photography. He begins with photographs and translates them into paintings through preparatory sketches. The resulting compositions reflect the influence of both photography and film, with elements deliberately left outside the frame. These decisions allow personal references, art-historical influences and the visual languages of other media to meet within the painted image.
The exhibition’s published image features ‘Lost Emblems’ (2025), an oil painting on linen measuring 71 by 59 centimetres. S.M.A.K.’s description places the work within a wider presentation of Eyckermans’s paintings rather than identifying a separate thematic section or a specific production commissioned for the exhibition. The museum has not provided further details about the total number of works in the selection in the available material.
The Eyckermans exhibition will coincide with other major autumn presentations at S.M.A.K., including ‘Ana Lupas met S P A T A R U | On Ritual Time’, scheduled from 10 October 2026 through 21 February 2027. Those exhibitions are presented as separate parts of the museum’s programme. ‘Bendt Eyckermans’ will remain on view at S.M.A.K. in Ghent until 21 February 2027.
