Stijn D'Hondt
Featured Artist
Stijn D’Hondt (°1991) was born in the small Belgian town of Anzegem and grew up in the city
of Ghent. At a young age, he lost his mother to breast cancer, a pivotal moment that sparked
his artistic journey. From that experience, he began to create, initially as a way to cope with
loss. Early on, his fascination grew for the fragile boundary between life and death, and for
the delicate, transient nature of human existence. This theme remains at the core of his
work.
A recurring motif in D’Hondt’s oeuvre is the heartbeat. The frequent presence of heart
disease within his family inspired him to use this biological rhythm as a symbol of life itself,
a pulse of emotion, presence, and humanity. Under the name Artbeats, D’Hondt developed
a distinctive visual language in which technology, data, and empathy merge. His art explores
how the body, through its own rhythm, can communicate what often cannot be expressed in
words.
