The Painter of Light and Tactile Truth Born in Turnhout in 1951, Fik van Gestel has spent his life navigating the delicate space where the physical world meets the internal sensation of seeing. He studied the craft of painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, a period that helped shape a sensibility deeply rooted in the act of creation itself. His work emerged during a transformative era in the 1980s, a time when he helpe…