The beginning

Isabelle Scheltjens was interested in art from an early age. She studied at SISA, the Antwerp city institute for decorative arts and crafts.

The beautiful glass design by her husband Dirk Neefs inspired Isabelle to work with the same material. It took her years of intensive practice and juxtaposition of countless pieces of colored glass to refine her method and really master color theory.

The material and the technique

She eventually developed a unique 'glass fusing' technique, in which pieces of glass in different colours, sizes and textures are fused together at approximately 800°C.

The colorful pieces of glass are like the dots of paint used by the pointillists: they form an abstract image up close, but a dramatic and precise portrait from a distance.

The expressive look

The story

Isabelle Scheltjens wants to express the story someone's face tells. “You can't walk past anyone without looking at their face. A very expressive face, which shows an incredible amount of emotion, is the beginning of my work,” explains Isabelle.

Faces from magazines and the streetscape are the source of inspiration for her often voluminous portraits of women. Once the right look has been chosen, the colors are determined.

Then the real, technical work begins for the artist. Playing with color and relief. A complex and very important part of her work, since a portrait is made up of approximately 20,000 different hand-cut glass plates.

Up close, the viewer sees an abstract representation that seems 'unfinished', as an intriguing play of bright colors. At a distance, the surfaces flow into each other through optical color mixing to form a portrait.

Her portraits represent profundity and slowness – as an antithesis to today's fast-paced and 'snapshot-oriented' context. She also gives shape to the duality between superficial appearances and confrontational reality through her portraits. The fragility of the material thereby represents the transience of beauty.

Worldwide interest

Isabelle Scheltjens' work can now be found all over the world. Since 2015, her works have been exhibited in France, Monaco, Hong Kong, London, South Africa, Dubai, the Netherlands, Italy and New York, among others.

Some of her works are themselves part of prestigious collections, such as those of the King of Morocco or Lotus Bakeries. Football player Kevin De Bruyne also recently bought a beautiful portrait of his wife Michèle.

Movies about Isabelle Scheltjens