'Huidkruiper' (2025).
Yasmine Stalpaert is a Belgian illustrator of children's books. In 2025, she debuted as a comic creator at the publishing house MENLU with the oppressive graphic novel 'Huidkruiper'.
Early life and career
Yasmine Simone Stalpaert was born in 1997 in the Flemish city of Leuven. Her grandfather is the Belgian comic artist Jean-Pol, known for the comic series 'Kramikske', 'Sammy' and 'Samson & Gert'. An avid drawer since early childhood, Stalpaert also developed an interest in languages, geography and history. Her knowledge of these subjects has been a prominent influence on her later illustration work. In her artwork, she has explored 18th-century baroque and Napoleonic times, but also fantasy worlds. Since 2016, Stalpaert has regularly attended local comic fairs, selling homemade cards, prints, buttons and other merchandise. Also in 2016, she won the "Rising Star Award" at the Knokke-Heist Comic Festival.
Education
Between 2016 and 2022, Stalpaert attended the LUCA School of Arts, where she first spent two years studying Audiovisual Arts and Animation Film, and then continued to obtain her bachelor's degree and then master's degree in Fine Arts. In mid-2019, she had an apprenticeship with the animation department of Studio 100, based in Paris, France. Shortly afterwards, she received a scholarship to spend one semester as an exchange student at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) in Portland, United States. From August to December of that year, she took classes there and stayed at the Arthouse Dorm not far from the school itself, which she has described as an enormously educational experience.
From: 'Prinses Willeke'.
Illustrator
Since 2020, Yasmine Stalpaert has been active as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer under the YassieArts banner. One of her clients has been Pulcra Business Inspiration, an initiative aimed at inspiring entrepreneurs in a changing world. In 2020, she made the illustrations for 'Het Spook van de Klokkentoren', her first children's book written by Paul Reichenbach and published under the latter's Pear Productions imprint. In the following year, she illustrated the book 'Prinses Willeke' by Jessica Raes (Clavis, 2021).
Huidkruiper
As her graduation project at the LUCA School of Arts, Stalpaert began working on her comic 'Huidkruiper'. In 2022, her concept was awarded the Knalgele Kubus Prize from the Marc Sleen Foundation, which came with a sum of money and a spot at the Marc Sleen Museum to work on her drawings. In 2025, the finished comic was released in book format by the Dutch publisher MENLU. 'Huidkruiper' tells the Kafkaesque story of Luis, a recently retired entomologist who moves with his wife Mabel to a remote suburb in the desert-like West of the USA. What seems like a dream location, quickly turns into a nightmare when the tap water tastes strange, the neighborhood turns out to be deserted and Luis slowly turns into an insect.
With her first book finished, Stalpaert has moved on to collaborate with writer Bert Gevaert on a comical historical drama about a mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Illustration from 'Het Spook van de Klokkentoren' (2020).