Antwerp is full of interesting galleries. At this moment there's the temporary show of Ben Sledsens, an Antwerp based painter who does paint the world he would like to live in.
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From 3 September through 10 October 2026, the Antwerp-born painter presents his newest body of work (Verlatstraat 23-25, 2000 Antwerp). It's an exhibition that pulls you into a world where time stands still: swans gliding silently across mirrored water, a full-sailed ship model cradled in two hands, an exuberant bouquet of roses on a kitchen table. If you love colour, wonder and a touch of naïve dreaminess, this is the show to catch this autumn on Verlatstraat — the perfect outing for the whole HOC Living community in Antwerp.
Sledsens, who made his name with lush, fairy-tale-like paintings full of vivid colour and dreamlike scenes, takes a subtle but meaningful step forward in his practice with this new series. Many of the works grew out of an extensive body of works on paper he has been developing over the past several years: a freer, more intuitive counterpart to his large-scale canvases. What began as a search for simplicity gradually expanded into a richer visual vocabulary of close-up water lilies, rhythmic reeds, floating flowers and an almost mystical landscape.
The result is a series of paintings that isn't about the spectacular, but about the small and the everyday. A swan gliding across still water, a walk through a snowy landscape, a sailboat drifting over a calm sea, a bouquet by an open window: these are fleeting moments that Sledsens captures and renders on canvas with an almost tangible tenderness.
Water returns in almost every work as a quiet presence. Ponds, reflections, water lilies and shimmering surfaces become places of stillness, encounter and contemplation. Take Swan and the Willow (2025-2026): an impressive 190-by-250-centimetre canvas in which a lone swan drifts through a lush, emerald-green scene of weeping willows and water plants. The painting carries the same restrained magic as the fairy tales Sledsens' work so often nods to, and in the gallery space it feels genuinely overwhelming in scale and colour.
A Three Masted Ship (2026) is another gem: a finely detailed model ship in full sail, held tenderly between two hands. The small scale of the model, set against the large canvas (200 x 160 cm), gives the work a touching sense of nostalgia, as though you're a child again, holding a toy boat in your own hands.
Then there are the still lifes, like the lush bouquet of pink flowers in a white vase on a round table. Seven full blooms, soft pink against an aubergine background: an image that's as simple as it is mesmerising, exactly the kind of "ordinary" moment Sledsens captures so well.
Ben Sledsens (b. 1991, Antwerp) belongs to a new generation of Belgian painters bringing a playful, wonder-filled energy back to figurative painting. His work has already been shown and collected internationally, and he represents, alongside artists such as Rinus Van de Velde and Bram Demunter, the roster of gallerist Tim Van Laere, who is also co-curating a major Ensor exhibition this year. With An Apple for the Road, Sledsens once again proves he keeps expanding his own, instantly recognisable visual language without ever losing the poetry that makes his work so beloved.
Exhibition: An Apple for the Road — Ben Sledsens Where: Tim Van Laere Gallery, Verlatstraat 23-25, 2000 Antwerp When: 3 September – 10 October 2026 More info: timvanlaeregallery.com
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