Draft:Bert Mertens

• File:Symbol opinion vote.svg Comment: You have added yet more information in a promotional tone without fixing the earlier issues. Somepinkdude (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

• File:Symbol opinion vote.svg Comment: Mertens appears likely to meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, but further work is needed on sourcing and tone. Sentences like are not written from a neutral point of view. This draft also needs to be rewritten to be based on what is contained in reliable, secondary sources, with citations to where each piece of information has come from. External links should be removed from the body of the draft and converted to inline citations where appropriate. MCE89 (talk) 09:01, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

---

Bert Mertens, born in Leuven on 19 December 1955, is a Belgian contemporary realist figurative painter.

Draft:Bert Mertens
File:Bert Mertens.jpg
Born	(1955-12-19) 19 December 1955 Leuven (Belgium)
Alma mater	KULeuven (Faculty of Law)
Known for	Painter
Style	Contemporary realism
Awards	Jos Albert Prize
Website	https://www.bertmertens.com/
Signature
File:Signature Bert.jpg

Biography

Bert Mertens is, as Yannick Haenel notes it, the complete opposite of artists who are programmed by their training. His initial vocation was architecture, but his family preferred to steer him towards law. After a serious accident, he changed his field of study and began his first career in the medical field. He became A1 nurse in the operating theatre, burn treatment centre, intensive care; then certified trainer for new surgical technologies, training young surgeons at the IRCAD in Strasbourg. He then moved closer to his aesthetic aspirations by becoming an independent entrepreneur in the field of interior design and sales.

In August 2018, he discovered oil painting. This marked the beginning of a self-taught artistic career.

Artistic approach

Bert Mertens is a figurative painter of contemporary realism, but one who distances himself from hyperrealism. This aesthetic influence is here not predominant: while his oil paintings are strikingly true to life, sometimes photographic, they exude a very personal style. He takes, according to Jean Jauniaux, a falsely objective look at reality, everyday life, the surroundings of things and the world. In each of his paintings, there is an interpretation of the immediate and its complexity. What he chooses to show is nothing exceptional; on the contrary, as Yannick Haenel pointed out, his painting "seizes upon neglected places to give them a rewarding depth". This depth stems from the sensory density he conveys through his extremely meticulous rendering of textures (which make you want to touch them) and rhythms: in each painting, through the framing, the interplay of lines and masses, there is a beat, a striking pulsation that is undoubtedly linked to the fact that the artist paints in a free jazz musical atmosphere. This kind of realism gives him the freedom to detach himself from the spectacular and the commodified ready-made emotions that distract from the present, in order to regain the autonomy to observe, question, interpret and admire the beauty of lived experience, as Myriam Watthee-Delmotte observes.

Distinctions

• In November 2024, he received the Jos Albert Prize from the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.
• In 2025 he joined the Cercle Royal Gaulois artistique et littéraire.

Exhibitions

• Bert Mertens. Les lieux nous parlent, Galerie Simoncini (Luxembourg), 2026.
• Bert Mertens. Figurer/transfigurer la ville, Maison de la Francité (Brussels), 2026.
• Exhibition on the occasion of the Jos Albert Prize award ceremony in the artist's Studio-gallery, curated by Charlotte Caroux, with the participation of Myriam Watthee-Delmotte (speech "Le réalisme, une liberté") and Françoise Roberts-Jones, 2024.
• Spring exhibition in the artist’s Studio-gallery, curated by Charlotte Caroux, with participation of Pascale Tison (reads "De quoi l’imagination d’un peintre peut-elle nous sauver?") and Jean-Paul Dessy (cello), 2024.
• Bert Mertens. Par la force du réel, Galerie Talmart (Paris), curated by Grigori Michel, with the support of the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris, 2023.
• Bert Mertens, Galerie Simoncini (Luxembourg), 2023.
• Raconter la nuit, around François Emmanuel, Atelier Les Voix en Ville (Schaerbeek), 2022.
• Exhibition to mark the opening of the new Studio-gallery (Brussels), 2022.

Collective exhibitions

• From 2019 to 2025, he participates each year at "We-art-XL". He is "Coup de coeur" of the collective exhibition in Demeuldre (Ixelles) in 2021 with "Bruno's Garage", oil on canvas, 120 x 150 x 4 cm.

• In 2023, he exhibited as finalist of the Prix des Arts of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, WHALL.

File:Bruno's Garage 1.jpg

Bruno's Garage 1

Remarkable orders

• Two of his paintings hang in the private part of the palace of the Belgium's sovereigns, King Philip and Queen Mathilde. The portrait of the four royal children belongs to Queen Mathilde since 2021. In 2023, he was commissioned to create the Portrait of King Philippe, presented by the Ministry of Defence to mark the tenth anniversary of his reign, for display in the sovereign's office.
• In 2024, Bertone commissioned him to create the canvas for the limited-edition Bertone GB110 luxury car to be exhibited at "Top Marques" Monaco (Grimaldi Forum) during the launch of this exceptional vehicle.

Publications

• Ducobu, Michel (2019). "Rencontre avec Bert Mertens", Reflets (62): 66-69.
• Jauniaux, Jean (2022-09-28). "Bert Mertens, peindre la poésie du réel", L'Ivresse des livres.
• Bert Mertens. A Thing of Beauty (monography). Texts of Ralph Dekoninck, Marc Dugardin, Pierre-Yves Soucy, Martine Vande Peene, Myriam Watthee-Delmotte (2022).
• Par la force du réel, text of Grigori Michel (Curator) and Le réel est un abîme. À propos des peintures de Bert Mertens, text of Yannick Haenel. Dossier Bert Mertens on the occasion of the exhibition at the Talmart Gallery, Paris (2023).
• Haenel, Yannick (2023-05-24). "L'art vertigineux de Bert Mertens", Charlie Hebdo (1609): 12.