ABout
About me
My studio is nestled in a serene oasis of greenery which we created when we moved into our current home and studio in 2008. This natural setting serves both as inspiration and a quiet place where I can fully concentrate on my work.
After graduating from the Academy of fine arts in Rotterdam in 1991 (sculpture and teaching), I made the conscious choice to return to the countryside. Working in the garden and daily walks with the dogs create a harmonious balance in my life and foster a state of mindfulness that positively influences the creative process.
Name
Mariëtte van der Ven
Date of birth
13-12-1967
Nationality
Dutch
Place of birth
Vriezenveen
Education
1986-1991 Academy of fine arts Rotterdam
Sculpture en 1st grade teaching
Inspiration
My love for nature as well as my fascination with humans are deeply rooted. Both play a major role in my work where, in recent years, the unfortunate influence of man on nature has been gaining more and more importance. Man with all his contradictions, capable of love but also hate, prone to judgment but also needy of the presence of others, whispered in by an inflammatory ego, is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for me. What in life forms man, how does he come to act, what makes him end up on one side or the other of the balance beam? What contributes to the abundance of emotions that determine man’s actions? Emotions that are behind the façade of the physical shell but which shape that layer.
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Those expressions that bear witness to man’s state of mind, that expression of the soul, I try to capture in my sculptures. It is not my intention making a similar portrait. The head is a medium for expressing an emotion or statement. When I work on a head, the moment always occurs when a soul appears, I connect with it and then I know it will be good. As long as that doesn’t happen, it becomes nothing and either I quit or continue until the magic happens.
By using a universal language, namely human expression and body language, I have a huge vocabulary to create my psychological portraits. Portraits that can be read like a poem. Behind the words lies the meaning, beneath the expression the emotion.
Materials
Although I am educated as a sculptor rather than a ceramist, at some point I started working with clay as a medium to shape my sculptures. A few years after graduating I ‘discovered’ this material and found that it fitted well with my way of working. I was looking for a material that I could keep scraping and fiddling with until I liked the result and ended up with clay. Initially, it was a clay with chamotte on which I applied a glaze. As my sculptures became more and more human representations I 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 I came across porcelain clay and decided to experiment with it. Porcelain really turned out to be a very different material than clay with chamotte and required a lot of practice and patience. Porcelain challenges me to work very fine and detailed which I find appropriate in certain works. It lends itself very well to getting expression and soul into a sculpture. The skin of the porcelain has something very refined and is already beautiful without further finishing.
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After a number of years in which I mastered working with porcelain clay, I was satisfied with the whiteness of the material and its focus on form. However, after a few years, I felt the need to do more with the skin and started looking for ways to apply colour. Those applications did not have to decorate the work but add value to the content of the work. For using applications on clay, I discovered some sculptural glazes that allowed me to add a painterly skin as an extra dimension to the sculpture. On porcelain, I have fallen in love with the use of copper oxide. Playing with layer thicknesses creates colours from pale green to deep black. Although the result is difficult to control, the effect is often of immense beauty that deepens the inspiration and expression of the work.
Although I also work with other materials and make sculptures for public spaces, I am mainly fascinated by the extensive possibilities and beauty of ceramics. Yet it’s not all gold that glitters, because a lot can go wrong and that happens regularly. However, it has never discouraged me from starting again because my love for my work far outweighs the frustration and disappointment it sometimes causes.
Acquired by
- Private collectors The Netherlands
- The Burger Collection U.S.A
- The New Museum New York, U.S.A.
- Private collector Shanghai, China
- Private collectors New York, U.S.A.
- Private collectors Tokyo, Japan
- Private collectors Limoges, Frankrijk
- Private collectors London, V.K.
- Museum Varazdin Kroatie
Artist in residency
- Sanbao Jingdezhen 2012
Competition
- Honorable mention Ceramica Multiplex Varazdin Croatia 2014
- MIC Faenza Ceramic Biennale/ 62° FAENZA PRIZE/MIC Faenza 2023
- De Kei, Prize for ceramic artists, nomination, Het Prinsenhof Delft 2023
