The artist behind the art: Michiko Van de Velde
Art is personal, but often there is a barrier between the public and the artist. This week, Belga English brings the creators to the reader in a series of four intimate interviews with female artists in Belgium.
In Japanese, there are at least 158 characters that reference light, and Belgian-Japanese artist Michiko Van de Velde, whose work revolves around light, the way the Earth revolves around the sun, wants to add more.
“It feels like there are still words missing,” she says. “This vocabulary was invented before digital technology existed, when people observed light on rocks and earth, but now we have light from modern screens and electricity, creating new experiences with light and shadows.”
Between two worlds
Van de Velde’s fascination with light stems from her childhood. Her parents, both classical musicians, took her back and forth between Tokyo and Brussels as they travelled for their careers and spent time in their respective home countries. Her art reflects a perpetual search for a link between the two countries, which lie on virtually opposite sides of the globe.
“I grew up mostly in Belgium, so there is a missing puzzle piece with Japan,” she says. “I want to invent a place where the two locations connect.”
"I grew up mostly in Belgium, so there is a missing puzzle piece with Japan"
She put this longing to connect the geographical dots into place when she found a specific period that the two cities connect and, unsurprisingly, that moment is based on the passage of light.
“There’s a moment where my two origins can share the same place,” she says, referring to an installation she created called We never live at the same time, expect when we share that common blue light.
.tiff)
During the summer solstice on 21 June 2017, Van de Velde observed a moment between 21.43 in Brussels, following sunset, and 4.23 in Tokyo, before sunrise, when the sun was neither in Belgium nor Japan.
“There is one colour that unifies both countries, in a common space and time,” she says. “A space where conversations in different languages, between people from different generations, can be shared.”
"There is one colour that unifies both countries, in a common space and time"
Through webcams set skyward in Brussels and Tokyo, she captured the moment when the horizon was an identical blue shade. In that instant, with the indistinguishable hues, she called her grandmother, who was waking up in Japan and projected their conversation in both French and Japanese.
“It was a short moment, but a shared one,” Van de Velde recalls.
Van de Velde’s penchant for fusing the two countries took on another form during the winter.
By replicating the Kanji symbol for “sun” (日), she again depicted the overlap of sunset and sunrise between Brussels and Tokyo in dreamy blues and oranges on an array of Japanese woodblock prints. “Two countries are combined into one character, thanks to the sun” she says of the shape.
日 / SUN 2022 - 2023 © MICHIKO VAN DE VELDE
Van de Velde credits Belgium’s slower sunrises and sunsets with allowing her to take the whole colour palette in.
“The difference between light in Japan and Belgium is that in Japan, the changes from day to night are so fast, there is not as much time to observe,” she says. “But often in Belgium, there is less sun to observe.”
Light and shade
A fascinating phenomenon, she finds, is how the two cultures regard the sun. “People are always looking for sun in Belgium. Trying to find warmth. Trees have been cut down and there is more open space to encourage light to be taken,” she says.
“In Japan, people are always seeking to escape from the sun and heat. It’s too hot, and cities are built in a way to maximise shadows.” She references Japanese author Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s essay In Praise of Shadows, citing the importance of finding cool darkness in an often smouldering country.
She notes, however, the differences she sees in Belgium now that climate change has generated higher temperatures. “Now with these heatwaves in Belgium, you see more and more people starting to seek shade.”
Capturing moments
Regarding Van de Velde’s vast array of artworks, the terms “wistful” and “nostalgic” seem etched into how she depicts time, space and light. When asked, however, if her work is meant to evoke nostalgia, Van de Velde says that much like capturing light, she captures “moments”.
“There is no specific story. Just moments in time. You need to witness what you just saw and ask what emotion you just encountered.”
“There is no specific story. Just moments in time"
One such occasion began innocuously and bloomed into a study. While Van de Velde took part in the everyday Belgian occurrence of waiting for a delayed tram, she noticed round shapes dancing on a white truck across the street.
In Japanese, the word “komorebi” describes sunlight filtered through the foliage of a tree. “The shape of the sun was reversed due to the camera obscura effect under the trees and was projected onto the truck," Van de Velde says. “Through the trees, suddenly there was a small observatory.”
The camera obscura mechanism occurs when light passes through a small hole into a dark space, projecting an inverted and reversed image of the outside scene onto the opposite surface.
Van de Velde was witnessing multiple reflections of the sun without looking directly at it. “The sun is 110 times bigger than the Earth,” she says. “This effect gives the sense that you are closer to the sun.” This serendipitous glimmer inspired a series of artworks named komorebi.
"I trust audiences and want them to be present and bring their own thoughts to my art"
While projections play a part in her creative process, Van de Velde does not like to project her own narrative onto those viewing her art. “I want them to bring their own perspectives,” she says. “I trust audiences and want them to be present and bring their own thoughts to my art.”
Shift of perspective
She is passionate about giving the public its “confidence” back. "Through my work, I want people to (re)discover what art evokes for them — to notice how they connect with it in their own way," she says.
"I invite them to see the light phenomena that already surround them in everyday life — familiar yet often unnoticed. What I see isn’t exclusive; it’s not hidden from them. I simply offer a shift in perspective, a way of drawing attention to what might have otherwise gone unseen."
She strives for her art to be accessible. She also has trust in the locations where she shows her work.
“The spaces are always part of the art,” she says. Once an exhibition date is set, she will visit the location to observe how light enters and its role in the surroundings during the day, as it changes constantly.
“I’m very primitive in how I operate. Everything is based on the sun and the light. I am always referring to what nature is giving me and going from there, therefore I need to be lucky and have a clear sky.”
"The spaces are always part of the art"
Van de Velde's first site-specific permanent piece was inaugurated in 2025 outside the Notre Dame church in Tournai as part of the EU-funded project Tournai Unesco Experience.
Using small pieces of Carrera marble, she created parallel sundials that the looming shadows of the cathedral trace each year on the summer solstice as they sweep across the square: once again composing around the light’s natural path.
Van de Velde is working on her newest piece, the largest to date at 5m wide, for the upcoming exhibition Fire at Villa Empain. Alongside a strong lineup of her contemporaries, this ode to fire in all its forms celebrates the element with a reverence for its power and wonder.
True to her gravitational pull between two cities, she is simultaneously preparing her second solo show for the Ichibanboshi Gallery in Tokyo this autumn.
Much like the many iterations of the word “light” in Japanese, Van de Velde will continue to find unique ways of collecting and projecting her passing moments onto any surface that will hold a gleam.
(MOH)
#FlandersNewsService | Michiko Van de Velde © PHOTO OGAWA MASAKI
Related news
