About Val Smets
Val Smets’ work explores memory as a shifting architecture, where imag- es, symbols, and stories take form and dissolve. Her practice is rooted in the act of remembering—not as retrieval, but as transformation. each work constructs a space where recollections blend with myth, intuition, and dream, shaping landscapes that unfold like visual narratives.
in Black & White, Smets presents a new series that both opposes and unites two energies. Two currents respond to one another, as in living organisms: red, luminous blood charged with breath and vitality, and blue, depleted of its substance yet ready to begin again. Together, they inter- twine and remain inseparable — essential cycles of life.
Val Smets (b. 1991, luxembourg) lives and works in Brussels. Her paint- ings navigate the intersections of memory, mythology, and the uncon- scious, depicting hybrid figures—humanized plants, nymphs, and met- amorphic beings—caught in cycles of transformation. Through layered textures and nuanced color palettes, she explores duality, fluidity, and the porous boundary between reality and imagination.
Smets holds a BF from la Cambre (enSAV), Brussels, and an mFA in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts of Uniarts Helsinki. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Rabouan moussion (Paris), esther Verhaeghe Art Concept (Brussels), Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill (Graz) and Valerius Gallery (Luxembourg). In 2022, she presented Bitter- sweet Invaders, a year-long installation at Kunsthaus Graz. She has also participated in group exhibitions at Better Go South (Stuttgart), Fir Gallery (Beijing), Das Weisse Haus (Vienna) and Gallerie Dumonteil (Paris), among others, as well as in major fairs such as Art Paris and BAD+ Bordeaux.
