The best advice: Bieke Buckinx

Bieke Buckinx has been a full-time artist for the past five years. After studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Anderlecht, she has exhibited at galleries such as VCRB in Antwerp, Urvanity Art in Madrid, and MAD in Brussels.
This has been an incredibly creative period for her. She has been producing new work at a rapid pace and is currently in the midst of preparing a new project, in which she is exploring new materials. Yet her artistic process doesn’t always go smoothly. “I often have moments when I completely hit a wall,” Bieke admits. “These often follow an intense creative period or after an exhibition, when I have to start from scratch again. I find myself hovering somewhere between the high of what just happened and the uncertainty of what’s yet to come.”

To break through that mental block, Bieke falls back on a mantra her cousin taught her: “Just do it!” That sounds simple, but it means the world to her: “It’s about stopping overthinking and getting physically active. It doesn’t even have to be directly related to work. You can go for a walk, visit an exhibition, read, watch documentaries, or listen to music. The point is to get into action mode. Sometimes I make sketches that I wouldn’t even show to my closest friends, but they do help set a process in motion. It’s helped me immensely to let go of the drive for perfection and casually start something new.” Bieke’s golden advice, then, is: “Trust yourself. Don’t force anything. New ideas arise organically just by doing.’