Mariëtte van der Ven: Selected works, 2019-2023
Trained as a sculptor rather than a ceramicist, at some point, Mariëtte began working with clay as a medium to shape her sculptures. She was looking for a material she could keep scraping and fiddling with until she liked it and ended up with clay. Initially, it was a clay with chamotte in which she used a glaze as a skin. As her sculptures became more and more human images, she began to see glaze as a limitation; it was a shiny layer that created distance instead of showing the sophistication in the faces. By chance, she came across porcelain clay and decided to experiment with it. Porcelain turned out to be a very different material than clay with chamotte and required a lot of practice and patience. Porcelain challenged her to work very fine and detailed, which she found appropriate in certain works. It lends itself very well to getting the right expression in a sculpture and comes very close to human skin. She currently works with both porcelain and chamotte clay, bisque or glazed, depending on what the work demands.
In Mariëtte’s sculptures, human appearance plays the leading role. However, she is never concerned with the likeness or perfection of the portrait or figure. Still, she uses figures to tell a story that is sometimes poetic, sometimes uncomfortable, and other times activist. In her recent work, natural elements and animals take on an increasing role. Her sculptures bear witness to her concern about the deplorable state the world has fallen into due to human intervention.
Captions
- How dare you, 2022, ceramics, glaze, terra sigillata, rope, 100x130x220 cm
- Mother Nature, 2020, porcelain, stoneware, terra sigillata, glaze, 60x30x45 cm
- Nature morte, 2023, porcelain, stoneware, copper oxide, glaze, 68x45x35 cm
- Owl Chick, 2020, porcelain, stoneware, glaze, gold luster, 38x50x83 cm
- Renaissance, 2020, stoneware, glaze, 57x30x35 cm
- Defeated, 2020, stoneware, glaze, 22x22x48 cm
- Series L’Inconnue: Bisous, 2023, porcelain, terra sigillata, glaze, brass, 45x33x33 cm
- Series L’Inconnue: Pointillés, 2023, porcelain, underglaze, transfer, 54x35x13 cm
- Breath out so I can breathe you in, 2021, porcelain, copper oxide, copper, 53x55x35 cm
- Family Matters, 2019, porcelain, glaze pencil, 90x100x20 cm
- Series L’Inconnue: Perdue, 2023, porcelain, glaze, gold luster, gold, 36x21x13 cm
- Hungry for Love, 2020, painted porcelain, 38x145x32 cm
- Grid, 2018, porcelain, glaze pencil, 55x27x15 cm
- Magpie, 2020, stoneware, terra sigillata, glaze, gold, gold luster, 13x20x41 cm
- To the moon, 2023, ceramics, glaze, chains, 145x20x30 cm
- Series L’Inconnue: Baies, 2023, porcelain and copper oxide, 36x21x17 cm
