Joke Raes is a Belgium-based artist who works internationally. In 2024, she won the Art Prize at Ceramic Brussels, earning her a two-month artist residency at Fondation L’Accolade in Paris. She completed her studies at HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Arts) in Ghent in 2016. Raes’s journey into the visual arts began with experiences such as an underwater exhibition in the Red Sea in Egypt and a residency with indigenous communities deep in the Peruvian Amazon. These experiences inspired her to develop a unique visual language driven by a profound fascination with the complexity and diversity of nature and humanity. Raes works in various media, including drawings, watercolors, ceramics, installations, performances, and sculptures. Her work explores themes such as duality of identity, the fragility and beauty of existence, tension and balance within images, and the concept of “imaginary walks” or encouraging people to collect “love water.”
This love water comes from rivers, lakes, or seas worldwide and is used in her creations, such a fountain ‘Petrified water’ or love-watercolor drawings. Her organic visual language, at times reminiscent of the lush structures of the Amazon rainforest, combines effortless movement with obsessive attention to detail. Each piece appears to emerge spontaneously, yet upon closer inspection, it reveals astonishing precision. She developed her ceramic work during residencies at Sundaymorning@EKWC in the Netherlands and in Arita, Saga, Japan. In 2017, Raes began her ongoing series of porcelain masks, Mask x. These masks reflect both her theater background and her reflections on fluid identity; each mask is given a unique name and identity by its owner. This series plays with the ambiguity and fragility of identity, exploring the tension between revealing and concealing.
Joke Raes’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at SMAK BE (’11), the Amazon rainforest PER (’12), the Red Sea EGY (’12), Vanhaerents Art Collection BE (’13), the Biennial of Contemporary Art in Moscow RUS (’15), Az Alma BE (’17), the Van Abbemuseum NL (’18), the Belgian Embassy in Tokyo and Kyoto Art Center JP (’18), Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens BE (’19), Destelheide BE (’19), The White House Gallery BE (’19), Poortersloge BE (’20), DMW Gallery BE (’21), Franzis Engels Gallery NL (’22), D’Apostrof BE (’23), Verduyn Gallery BE (’23), Galerie P BE (’24), Kunstenhuis Harelbeke BE (’24), her solo exhibition Wandermask in the Japanese Garden of Oostende as part of the Ensor Year, and the Triennale Bruges at CC Bruges BE (’24).Through her curiosity about nature and her unique, detailed approach, Raes creates artworks that offer not only an intriguing but also a philosophical perspective on our relationship with the world around us.
