A hybrid language of body, movement and transformation.

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What do we see when a body becomes a canvas?
When movement carves space and paint becomes skin?

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Shaped through a collaboration with talented pole dancers, fellow artist Sarie Verheughe and a close circle of creative spirits,

Pole Animals was born from the imagination of visual artist Sarina Mannaert.
 

Within these questions, she fuses make-up, body paint, pole dance and photography into one fluid artistic language:

one that speaks to who we are, who we dare to be and how we define different forms of expression and beauty.

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Pole Animals invites you into a world where reality meets myth and where animal shapes

emerge from human strength. Where disciplines often seen as secondary reveal their power as forms of art and expression.

These figures appear almost mythical: half-animal, half-human, caught in a moment of suspension to tell a story that goes far beyond the frame.

These beings are not costumes but living bodies, captured in a floating state of stillness.

Only the pole, the one tangible element, reminds us that this is no dream.

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In this enchanting realm, sarina invites us to rethink how we view pole dancing and body painting by breaking down stigmas and letting us rediscover the artistry and dedication they represent.

Pole Animals serves not as a manifesto, but as an offering:
a space between visibility and recognition,
between imagination and identity.
May these images open new ways of seeing.
May they invite you to wonder.
May they remind us that art can live on the skin, in the air and the space in-between.