Why I sculpt –

an inner need

Art, for me, is a descent.

Not down the broad boulevards of the visible, but into the catacombs of the inner world. In those underground spaces, imagination grows, thought gropes, and feeling becomes a guide. There, far from strategy and the market, something arises that cannot be steered—only discovered.

Just as the first humans withdrew into caves to capture their world in images, I return to that same impulse. Their gestures were silent, physical, essential. A hand on the wall, a breath of pigment to say: I am here. I see that moment as the starting point of art—not as an illustration of reality, but as a marking of existence. A trace of presence, vulnerability, wonder.

Sculpting is not a choice for me, but a necessity.

I feel it as both a privilege and a calling to create with my hands, my breath, my body—something that resonates with who we are at our core. My materials—bronze, copper, marble, stone, wood—are not decoration. They breathe time, memory, impermanence. They are traces of an inner landscape: fossils of a thought, residual forms of growth.

I work slowly, with focus and physical engagement. Each sculpture emerges in silence, through a process of surrender and search. Not to explain, but to be present. Not as an object, but as a space. My sculptures do not ask to be understood—they ask to be experienced, like echoes of something ancient we’ve nearly forgotten.

Is pure art still possible?

That is a question that preoccupies me. In a world where the artist is increasingly driven by market logic, visibility, and expectations, that inner freedom remains under pressure. Yet, I believe true art remains possible—if we dare to descend. To seek silence. To work out of necessity, not strategy. To return to the raw, the physical, the true beginning.

My work does not aim to provide answers. It seeks to open up a space.

For presence. For stillness. For connection.

As a sculptor, I am always searching for that one gesture, like the hand on the wall in a primeval cave, that says:

I am here

Dirk De Middeleer

Sculptor - painter