Vicky Lema (°1983) lives and works in Ghent. She trained as a teacher of ethics at HoGent (2005–2006) and studied painting at the Ghent Academy (KASK, 2006–2011). Today she teaches drawing and painting at the Secundair Kunstinstituut in Ghent.

But it is her images that matter most. Landscape is the central metaphor through which Vicky shapes her worldview. She does not seek to represent it mimetically, realism is not her concern. Instead, she abstracts natural forms until they become cultural ones, letting her palette speak her inner state. Her landscapes are also self-portraits.

This layering is at the heart of her practice: the objective landscape, the inner landscape, and between them, the body of the painter herself, hidden within the making of the image. That threefold depth turns her work into a quiet enigma.

Abstract planes form a theoretical cosmos. A horizon divides the composition, fragile and shifting. Branches stand scattered across the canvas, one bearing a green bud, an olive branch perhaps, with the dove already gone. The branch itself evokes the fork in the road, the moment of choice where conflict begins. Yet the budding growth holds out hope.