DRIES CELIS

Visual artist  ·  former international short-track speed skater

PROFILE

Belgian visual artist working at the intersection of sport and human experience. Drawing on a former career in international short track, Celis uses drawing, painting and sculpture to explore ambition, discipline, vulnerability, ethics, play, memory and performance.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS

2026  OLYMPIC DREAM — exhibition
Drawings, paintings and sculptures reframing a former Olympic dream through art. With texts by Eline Berings and a contribution by Robin Carlier (Coaching In Context). Artist talk with Celis and Berings, moderated by Hilde Van Canneyt, 7 February 2026.

2026  MM1 — group exhibition, Merelbeke-Melle, Belgium
Selected group exhibition; presented at Kerk Schelderode.

2024  TIME TO PLAY — ongoing body of work
Sculptural and installation-based work on play, ethics, collaboration and performance; including the monumental steel work TIME TO PLAY (2024).

2025 PAINTING DIARIES — Ongoing series of paintings
Painting Diaries is an ongoing series in which painting becomes a form of visual diary. Personal experiences around love, identity and performance are translated into direct images, words and symbols.

2019 IN SEARCH FOR IDENTITY — Gentbrugge, Belgium

An ongoing body of paintings exploring identity, introspection and the shifting relationship between the individual and the self. The series marks an early and continuing strand within Celis’ practice, using painting as a space for observation, reflection and reinterpretation.

ATHLETIC BACKGROUND — SHORT TRACK

International competition for Belgium · De Schaverdijn, Hasselt

2004–06  8 ISU World Cup meetings
United States · Canada · Hungary · Slovakia · China · South Korea · Italy · Netherlands

2005  ISU European Short Track Championships — Torino, Italy
Belgian national team; individual distances and 5000 m relay.

2005  ISU World Junior Short Track Championships — Belgrade
Represented Belgium at the World Junior Championships.

ARTISTIC CONTEXT

Celis' practice treats the body as both medium and mirror: a place where strength and vulnerability, control and play, and achievement and desire meet. His sporting biography functions as source material rather than as a separate chapter from the work.

ONLINE

Portfolio  www.driescelis.com     Artist profile  Sculpture Network — Dries Celis

Updated September 2026 · Competition data checked against public short-track result archives.