Florian Tomballe Belgium, b. 1988

BIOGRAPHY

Florian Tomballe (°1988) lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Trained as a sculptor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Tomballe has developed a distinct visual language that bridges traditional craftsmanship with a contemporary sensibility. Working across sculpture and drawing, his practice explores the expressive potential of the human figure through a process of intuitive construction and formal reduction.

His work synthesizes elements of Synthetic Abstraction, Cubism, and archaic figuration drawing on classical sources such as the Greek Kouros and Kore, while engaging the structural innovations of artists like Braque, Picasso, and Permeke. Tomballe's figures, often built through a method of deformation and reassembly, resist static representation. Instead, they emerge as provisional forms that oscillate between memory, archetype, and abstraction.

In both two and three dimensions, Tomballe employs a consistent material approach. His drawings, made with the same materials as his sculptures, function not as preparatory studies but as spatial compositions  extensions of his sculptural thinking flattened into line and rhythm.

Over the past decade, Tomballe's work has evolved from a classically grounded understanding of the body into a more fluid, hybrid mode of figuration. Full-standing figures, busts, and abstracted profiles explore the relationship between surface, weight, and gesture. His works invite the viewer to encounter the body not as image, but as structure - shaped by touch, history, and intuition.

Tomballe has exhibited in cities including Antwerp, London, New York, and Valencia. His work is part of international private and institutional collections, including LVMH, and collectors such as Gordon Sumner (Sting), Peter Marino, and Edouard Vermeulen. His practice has been featured in publications such as SABATO, ABSoluut, and AKT Magazine.