Nele Boudry & Stijn Kuppens
Inspired by BOU.TS
Painter Nele Boudry and composer-cellist Stijn Kuppens first met in May 2022 at the studio of Poperinge artist Lucien De Gheus. Their shared intuition led to an initial collaboration around the album Seven Miracles, which in turn sparked the artistic need for a larger project. A deep mutual interest in the Flemish Primitives inspired the idea of an exhibition with music. Drawing from the work of Dieric Bouts and the music of his time, both artists developed a new repertoire, guided by a profound respect and understanding for each other as both individuals and creators. The exhibition Inspired by BOU.TS offers a unique fusion of visual art and music, where Nele Boudry’s paintings and Stijn Kuppens’ musical creations enhance and challenge one another. This expo with music took place from April 4th until April 18th 2025, in the Kapel Romaanse Poort in the city of Leuven, and it was a must-see for art and music lovers seeking a deeper connection with Renaissance art and its contemporary interpretations. The project was supported by the City of Leuven. Throughout the exhibition, several live music performances took place, featuring Kuppens’ music performed in the chapel. Exhibition design by Lidewij Deroo.
About 'Inspired by BOU.TS'
Inspired by BOU.TS is an experience. A profound and layered journey—both intimate and intense—deliberately anachronistic, even timeless. This exhibition reaches back in time, evoking past images and sounds from a contemporary perspective, making subtle allusions to what was created centuries ago. Here, the past is revived and celebrated, yet never merely repeated. It is sung and contemplated, approached by two artists who stand firmly in the present.
Nele Boudry and Stijn Kuppens—painter and musician—found each other and their inspiration in a shared admiration for the work of 15th-century master Dieric Bouts. They made it their own, each searching through their respective disciplines for an authentic interpretation—one that brought them closer to Bouts while also responding to his work in an associative and deeply personal way.
The subtle break in the master’s name hints at hesitation, a sense of reverence in engaging with his legacy. More likely, it marks a brief silence—one of contemplation, of a heightened attentiveness that so distinctly characterizes this interplay of interpretations.
About Nele Boudry
In Nele Boudry’s oeuvre, our shared humanity plays a central role. Informed by the legacy of the Renaissance and the Flemish Primitives, she sees her practice as a framework for exploring and questioning the nature of our existence. Her perspective is decidedly transhistorical: with a contemporary gaze, she reinterprets what came before. This approach also guided her engagement with the work of Dieric Bouts, which served as the starting point for her paintings. She observed his art closely, using it as a foundation for her own, interpreting his imagery with an open mind. His exceptional technical mastery inspired her, challenging her to push her own artistic abilities. She painted on wood, applied chalk glue and marble powder as a base layer, and embraced a deliberate slowness—layer by layer, allowing forms, colors, and thoughts to gradually emerge.
Yet, she also questioned what she encountered, though she did not reject it. Rather, she showed deep concern for the situations and figures Bouts had immortalized. A dog sleeping vulnerably on a cold stone floor—she gave it a cushion. A generous gesture, echoed throughout her work. In an age where compassion is often lacking, she softens rigidity. She also noticed the pronounced focus on suffering in Bouts’ human figures, expressed through their formal, devout postures. She allowed their hands to dance, giving them playful, expressive fingers that reached freely beyond the confines of the frame. She did not limit them to their original context but offered them a view of the world—a vast landscape responding to their once-constrained universe. She introduced humor and playfulness into the margins, bringing a lighter tone to the composition.
Even for the artist himself, she showed mercy. She placed him in contact with his contemporary, Jan van Eyck, who surpassed him in fame. A quiet act of recognition and solace—acknowledging that artistic merit does not always align with the recognition one seeks or deserves.
About Stijn Kuppens
Stijn Kuppens is a cellist and composer who never sees his music as separate from the world around him. Yet, it never becomes anecdotal. He delves deeper and reaches further, cultivating a historical and cultural awareness that transcends the specificity of time and space. He plays both solo and in ensemble, improvises and interprets, merges genres and traditions, honors and transforms them, and connects them. His work is generous, as it blurs boundaries and extends an invitation to listen and experience—to explore sound as a carrier of meaning. Layers is exemplary in this regard. It is an album created according to his signature approach, with Bouts’ paintings in mind. Inspired by them, the compositions also branched out from that point, forming a layered, contemporary soundscape with tonal colors that resonate with the exhibition and interact with the unique acoustics of the Leuven chapel.
At its core, Layers is a musical interpretation of the imagined sounds suggested by the scenes in Bouts’ paintings. This auditory representation—inevitably an approximation—is built upon free yet deliberate associations. In doing so, Stijn Kuppens combined two musical foundations. First, his personal, intuitive embodiment of the Late Medieval and early Renaissance atmosphere, which he translated into original cello compositions, enriched with the virtuosic and poetic guitar sounds of Myrddin. Second, historical polyphony, drawn from the Leuven Chansonnier, a fifteenth-century collection of love songs. The three-part vocal harmonies he encountered there were reworked into expressive solo pieces for cello, enhanced with generative electronics. Fragments of the texts, translated into Portuguese and sung by Helena Casella, weave through the music, while additional contributions can be heard from guest musicians Didier François on nyckelharpa, Tom Beets on recorders, and Sofie Vanden Eynde on lute and theorbo. At times, the music is performed live; otherwise, a recording refines the viewing experience and completes the artistic journey.
About the exhibition design
The exhibition setup of Inspired by BOU.TS was conceived by Lidewij Deroo and is, above all, designed to evoke a feeling. A carefully composed, sensitive, and deliberate context in which the spirit of the past connects with a contemporary perspective. From there, a dialogue unfolds—an inspired conversation that, free from trends, explores our humanity, unfolding in the warm glow of softened light. The atmosphere is almost sacred, reflecting the devotion of Bouts and resonating with the temperament of the chapel, yet it refrains from a one-sided sense of piety. Above all, it engages an inner voice, inviting contemplation and reflection—on how we relate to ourselves and to others, on the world we inhabit, and on the healing power of beauty and art. Despite the centuries that have passed since Bouts first showed us this path, his work remains steadfast, while also diverging from the experiences and knowledge we have since accumulated.
The white walls, which most noticeably transform the context, reference the concept of the white cube. A modern quotation, but one that carries deeper significance. It draws attention to the works displayed and the music that resonates within the space, partly detaching them from the charged history of the chapel. Yet, the delicate paper that subtly covers the walls introduces a sense of layering—a weaving of nuances that was already present in Bouts’ art and is equally reflected in the interpretations distilled from it by Nele Boudry and Stijn Kuppens, each in their own way. In the end, it all comes together in a dynamic interplay—across centuries and artistic disciplines. A dialogue between image and sound, between past and present, between perspectives on what both differentiates and unites us as human beings.