Artist Statement

Elia Vanderheyden (°2000, BE) Lives and works in Belgium. Elia Vanderheyden is a Belgian visual artist who combines both Archaic Printmaking Techniques and contemporary technological developments within Artificial Intelligence and Lasercut. At the end of June 2024, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and continued his Journey in building a collective printmaking space under the name SPLINTER of which he is the Co-founder and Chairman.

He has worked together with Museum de Reede under the collective of SPLINTER to provide a platform for young printmakers to exhibit in a contemporary printmaking museum. Exhibited in art Gallery de Uitstalling for “Uitgestald-1” (Genk) , went on an artist residency in “Le Charbonnage” (Genk), Exhibited twice for the OnBoards biennale (Antwerp), MAD art gallery (Poland), ITHAKA (Leuven), Emile van Dorenmuseum (Genk), Shirley Sherwood Gallery (London), won the first price Frans Dille in Plantin Moretus Museum in 2021 (Antwerp), And so on...

Elia Vanderheyden’s artworks consist of two dialogues within the medium of Print: from creating digital landscapes through various A.I. Tools and Photoshops techniques that are translated into woodcuts through lasercutting. And printed by hand in the style of classical Japanese Woodcuts or through the use of western Contrapresses. To creating landscapes by focusing solely on the texture of wooden panels and inking strategies for a series of noise prints with the goal of neutralizing the mind in a world of overstimulating visual information fields.

Elia Vanderheyden is represented by Uitstalling Art Gallery in Genk (Belgium) since August 2024