Dirk Zoete (b. 1969, Roeselare, Belgium) is a Ghent-based artist whose work grows from drawing — the foundation of a universe filled with invented characters, architectural forms and staged scenarios. Influenced by Bauhaus theatre and Constructivism, he moves fluidly between drawing, sculpture, photography and performance, letting each medium feed the next. His practice embraces playful experimentation and continual reworking: sketches become models, models return to drawings, and images evolve through repetition and variation.
Zoete describes this circular process using the Portuguese word brincadeira — meaning play — a term that captures the tension between making and imagining that drives his work. Rooted in a farming background, his imagery draws on rural life, the human form and everyday objects, filtered through a sensibility that is at once naïve and quietly melancholic. Since 2023, painting has entered his practice as a natural extension — not a departure, but a continuation with drawing as its primordial source.
Zoete’s major solo exhibitions include To Be Determined. According to the Situation at S.M.A.K., Ghent (2017) and In Anticipation of Improvement at Be-Part, Waregem (2016). His work is held in the collections of S.M.A.K. (Ghent), Teylers Museum (Haarlem), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam), and the Collection of the Flemish Community.