Johan Creten initially studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent and then went on to study sculpture at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. After a residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, he lived like a nomadic artist for some time, travelling between Miami, Monterrey (Mexico), Kohler (Wisconsin), and the Villa Medici in Rome, creating artworks at all of these places. His current home base is Paris.