Gian Michael Merlevede

Gian Michael Merlevede (*1973)

Roughly you could say that for the last 40 years I have been painting.
I was six when I told my shocked mother that I wanted to become a visual artist.

When the time came I went to art school in Antwerp (Belgium). I became a graphic designer first, then enlisted at Ghent University and studied art history and art philosophy.

Eventually I became what I envisioned as a child: a full-time painting artist.
On top of that, I married a lovely female painting artist and together we settled down in a small rural village in East-Germany where the living is as spacious as affordable and the sky the limit.

My art often reflects aspects of my journey of faith.
I belong to the earth, as much as I belong to the unseen, the heavens above.
For now, I live in the unyielding rift between those two worlds. That is what I contemplate.
The biblical informations increase my awareness of God´s sovereign ways of redemption.
It is often only in the aftermath of inner struggles, that we humans gain clarity.

Quality in art is all about contemplative humility, courage and endurance. And in some way or another, artistic excellence always touches upon the profound mastery or mystery of the Creator and God Who Is. At best, something holy is revealed to us. Then our receptivity for the Creator’s Personality and His secretive ways is boosted. If we keep reaching, we keep receiving.

At the CA Seminar 2019 I will facilitate the painting workshop “Visual Gravitation and the Longing Place”.