Contemporary portrait painting by Belgian Artist Griet Cornille aka grietgriet

Griet Cornille aka grietgriet from Ostend, Belgium enjoys playing with colours and shapes on paper from an early age. Her creative itch remains a talent that has long been hidden from the outside world. In her room and later in her own house, she paints and draws but shows it to few people. This will change when she goes to the art academy for a year in 2015, where she gains more self-confidence to show her art.

Grietgriet mainly makes portraits. Sometimes the process takes days to get from an idea to the final result, but sometimes she starts without a plan and follows her feelings, with the result that the portrait is ready on canvas in a few hours. When she starts from an existing person, she likes to bring out the beauty but also the vulnerability of the person. Their story is the story behind the portrait and is therefore very important. Those stories come from personal conversations in which about a hundred photos are taken. She uses these photos to make sketches on loose sheets, which she almost finishes completely and processes them in collages in a book or it ends up in passe-partouts. An image is selected from these sketches, which she further elaborates on canvas with acrylic paint.

Women in particular are portrayed by her hand because being a woman is a big part of her identity and she feels strongly connected to other women and the bond between women intrigues her.

Grietgriet gets inspiration mainly from her daily life. The North Sea and the city of Ostend are an important part of this. While cycling through the city, she thinks about portraits and new ideas are formed. In the summer she loves that she can observe people unabashedly, looking at their facial contours behind her sunglasses. She dreams about colours, about the right nuances. Her kitchen table is her studio, there is always paint within reach so that every small or big moment is used with painting.

Website: https://www.grietgriet.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grietgriet_/