In a contemporary art ecosystem often dominated by commercial interests and gallery gatekeeping, Ghent’s Zebrastraat continues to carve out a radically open haven for emerging visual talent through its ongoing initiative Showcase#art. Each year, an independent jury sifts through portfolio submissions to handpick ten artists, assigning one creator to every calendar month (excluding July and August). The selection process centres strictly on quality, individuality, and a critical prerequisite: the artist must not be affiliated with any gallery. Looking at the broader horizon, every five years the initiative culminates in LUSTRUM, a monumental retrospective exhibition hosted in Zebrastraat’s dedicated gallery wing. Accompanying this retrospective is a fully realised exhibition catalogue published and supported by the Liedts-Meesen Foundation.
Here is a glimpse of this Fall’s program!
Louis Dewitte
02.07.2026 – 29.08.2026
Louis Dewitte (°2002, Ghent), a KASK Fine Arts alumnus, operates dynamically across painting, performance, and participatory interventions. At the core of Dewitte’s practice lies a playful fascination with language, turning idioms into literal visual realities to invite fruitful misinterpretations. Using wordplay as a tactical vehicle for humour, his paintings feature bold colours, geometric structures, and distinct anthropomorphic figures with elongated fingers. By reassembling everyday objects alongside riddles and narratives, he assigns them uncanny new functions. Humour, irony, and laughter remain his ultimate objective, offering a witty, joyful disruptor in the past summer showcase schedule.
Fien Stevens
03.09.2026 – 30.09.2026
Fien Stevens (°2001, Ghent) treats painting as a physical, spontaneous dialogue between the artist and the canvas. Working in her hometown, her process unfolds intuitively through continuous trial, reaction, and adaptation, allowing unexpected moments to direct her brushstrokes. When working on large-scale canvases, her art becomes deeply bodily. Influenced by external triggers like music, her physical posture, gestures, and painting speed coalesce into a hypnotic, rhythmic movement across the canvas surface.
Martine Jansen
01.10.2026 – 28.10.2026
Operating at the intersection of painting and sculpture, Martine Jansen builds a visual language around line work, layering, and raw materiality. Her visual signature leans into subtle abstraction, tactile depth, and a serene, contemplative stillness. In her latest practice, Jansen explores how scale, medium, and surface texture dictate the physical presence of an artwork within a given space, transforming the showcase area into an intimate dialogue between physical form and observer.
Charel Pycke
02.11.2026 – 28.11.2026
Charel Pycke (°1995, Brussels), a KASK Fine Arts graduate, grounds his artistic practice in a fascination with ornament and architectural decoration. Inspired by childhood visits to Marrakech, where patterns and rhythm signaled deep cultural differences, Pycke spent five years dissecting geometry—using the triangle as a foundation—before expanding into broader architectural influences. Through reinterpreting historical motifs with a contemporary visual language, his work challenges the underestimated role of decoration, probing the subtle tension between functionality, aesthetics, and meaning.
<div class="editorial-banner"> <div class=“editorial-credits”>Are you an unrepresented visual artist looking to share your work with a wide range of visitors? Submissions for upcoming Showcase#art cycles are open! Head over to the Zebrastraat Website to register, review full practical guidelines, and submit your portfolio for consideration<br><br>@zebrastraat</div>
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