Marleen Pauwels (°1959, Dendermonde, Belgium) studied Life Drawing at the Constantin Meunier Art School in Brussels, Graphic Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dendermonde, and Etching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Aalst.

In 2001, she began traveling through Spain and eventually settled in a small mountain village near Ronda, Andalusia, where she currently lives and works. Over the years, Pauwels has exhibited her work in solo and group shows across Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain — in museums, galleries, artist-run spaces, and art fairs. Her work has been awarded and published internationally and is part of private, public, and corporate collections worldwide.

Her artistic practice is centered around silence and solitude. In the early years, she created abstract compositions using etching, drawing, and collage. Gradually, elongated figures began to appear in her work, becoming essential elements of her visual language.

Weathered walls often serve as backdrops for these figures, leaving open gaps that invite the viewer to look beyond the first impression. Pauwels constructs these textured surfaces through layers of paper, acrylic, and oil paint, concealing fragments of carefully selected text within them.

Her palette is deliberately restrained, aimed at evoking atmosphere and emotion through subtle tones; she believes that too many bright colors would create a language foreign to her intent.

In her recent paintings, Pauwels depicts either extremely elongated or minuscule naked figures — a meditation on the human condition in its purest essence. The juxtaposition of these fragile bodies within empty, unadorned spaces strengthens her ongoing exploration of vulnerability, silence, and the essence of being.