About

Sarina Mannaert is a multidisciplinary artist working with the body as a site of transformation. Through make-up, body paint, photography, art direction and performance, she explores visibility, beauty, identity and craft within practices that are often kept backstage, exist primarily online or are considered secondary.

By placing both the making process and its contemporary outcomes at the center of her work, she questions how bodies, beauty and embodied knowledge related to contemporary craft practices are represented and valued within the arts. Her work foregrounds female artistic voices and reclaims make-up, hair and body paint as independent artistic practices.

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Biography

Mannaert’s artistic practice grew from a deeply embodied relationship with image-making. From an early age, she was confronted with questions of identity, visibility and transformation (experiences that later became central to her work). Because of a life-altering event in her childhood, she was forced from an early age to relearn how she related to the world and the people around her, a process that continues to inform her artistic perspective.

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For her, photography, make-up and body paint function as powerful artistic tools for self-expression and empowerment, but also to question. Through her work, she invites individuals to encounter aspects of themselves that challenge how identity is perceived and embodied. Over time, her background in make-up artistry and photography evolved into an autonomous artistic language that bridges visual art, performance and craft.

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Alongside the body, the surrounding environment plays an active role in her work. She frequently creates painted backdrops herself and works intuitively with the textures, colors and atmospheres of specific locations, both indoors and in public space. Styling and clothing are often developed as part of the same process, allowing body, image and environment to merge into a single visual composition.

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She has worked professionally for over ten years across media, music, events and television, gaining extensive experience in collaborative and large-scale productions. Rather than separating applied and autonomous work, Mannaert treats each context as a space to refine her visual vocabulary, technical precision and conceptual focus.

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Her work often challenges existing hierarchies within the arts, particularly the positioning of make-up and body-based practices as supportive rather than artistic. By reclaiming these disciplines (together with scenography, styling and spatial context) as primary tools, she creates images and performances that highlight transformation as both process and subject.

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Selected Projects

• Pole Animals (2019–2024)
  A long-term photographic project merging pole dance, body paint and photography, exploring strength, discipline and transformation through the human body.

• Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (2022)
  A photographic and performance project reinterpreting local tradition by reimagining Dendermonde’s iconic giants as contemporary female figures.

• From Mask to Human – Is Make-Up Art? (2024)
  A live performance at FOMU Antwerp (Ensornacht), inspired by Cindy Sherman, placing the make-up process itself on stage as an autonomous artistic act.

• Recto Verso
  An ongoing project examining identity, representation and reversal through portraiture and moving image.
   

Professional Practice

Alongside her autonomous artistic work, Sarina Mannaert has an extensive professional practice within media, music, events and performance. She has collaborated with artists, performers and productions across national and international contexts, bringing a strong visual, spatial and conceptual approach to applied projects.

This professional experience informs her artistic work, strengthening her attention to detail, process, collaboration and visual coherence.

For professional collaborations, see Media Work.