7 Must-See Shows During Art Brussels

Joan Semmel | Xavier Hufkens Rivoli | 22 April – 27 June 

In ‘Continuities’, a transatlantic presentation across Brussels and New York – at Xavier Hufkens and Alexander Gray Associates – Joan Semmel places her body front and centre. Known for her figurative paintings, such as Fleshed Out (2025), which simultaneously push against and extend the legacy of abstract expressionism, the American painter uses her own body to create depictions whose vulnerability exerts strength. With their daring blue, yellow, purple and pink hues and photographic points of view, Semmel’s self-portraits quietly deploy a range of techniques through which painting becomes at once prism and body, undoing any stable separation between image and subject.