USA, Bloomfield Hills, Cranbrook Academy of Art, 2017
In exploring function as metaphor the objects I create reference the familiar. I work to understand their influence; is it we who shape their existence or do they also dictate us? The body activates these ‘things’ as much as they in turn reflect it.
I think of all materials, surfaces and forms in relation to the body; whether it be by the way that they embody corporeal qualities or in the ways in which they speak to/call for physical engagement. I see skin-ness in colour, texture and metaphorical function, but also in longing for and responsiveness to touch. I wonder if by representing humanness, embodied within inanimate things, can one more fully and aptly experience the humanity within oneself?
What is it that we search for within ‘things’? Why do we project aspects of ourselves onto and into them? In other words, what can a still life reveal; an invitation to engage, a staging for a specific event, an offering on a platter? Or perhaps simply something about ourselves.
Intro by Marzee Admiraal de Ruijterweg 345H Amsterdam The Netherlands