Relevant Education
2022 MFA, Fine art degree in Glassart, State Institute for Arts and Crafts (IKA) Mechelen – Belgium
2017 BFA, Fine art degree in Glassart, State Institute for Arts and Crafts (IKA) Mechelen – Belgium
2009 Bachelor in Fine Arts at AKV-St.Joost, Den Bosch – the Netherlands
1989 Cabinetmaker and Carpenter, Antwerp – Belgium
1987 Sculpture at Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp – Belgium
After I graduated as Bachelor of Fine Arts at Avans University of Applied sciences, I found my way to the domain of glass art. The restriction of working with a single material still gives an enormous variety of techniques. Glass is unique in its way to work with it either solid and cold or hot and fluid.
Engraving in glass is a technique very close to my own imaginary language. The diamond wheels on the lathe are like paintbrushes to the painter. Working in relief is like working on the border of two and three dimensionalities. It is an exciting space with constantly asking myself which way to go; deeper in the glass or just the illusion of depth.
Glass engraving has different possibilities to work in relief, very lightly in the surface in transparent colors or in depth in opaque colors. Cameo glasswork is part of the last form. It is actually very similar to high relief and bas relief in sculpture.
I made a series of ovals in colored glass in which I just touched the surface lightly to remove some color to come to the right feeling for the portraits. It is a game of lighter and darker colors. In my cameo bowl is a relief in white that gives its own game of light and shadow.
A basic value for mankind to me is the equality of people. By making every portrait in the same oval framework I tried to emphasize on this equality instead of polarizing “them and us” like the media seems to do so often. How different everybody is should not matter. I wish everybody would be looked at with an open mind.
The cameo bowl (‘In Transit’) also has a diversity of portraits. It is made after the horrific pictures in the media about immigrants in eastern Europe travelling by train. Travelling is of all times and I still believe in a melting pot. I tried to show people ‘just’ travelling as normal as possible.
My blown forms includes the Graal technique. This technique of glassblowing is a long and difficult process. Lots of things can go wrong. I have to be focused the whole time to get it to a good ending.
These blown glassworks develop in a total different way than the portraits. Technique is more important and I work more on intuition with only a direction to go to. The result comes into existence in action.
Recently I discovered the fine work of lampworking which gives me the oppertunity to blow glass in small forms. I come back to my sculpture background and with the material of borosilicate glass, it is a new challenge.
Portraits, however, are always coming back in my work. I am at this moment working smaller, to the size I feel comfortable with. The medals I am making are fine art in glass as well as a sculpting challenge. The relief is still a favorite way of working.
I made a series of five medals in crystal glass of five different historic women who deserved to be honored with a medal. This is the series ‘Women matter’. I made them because these women were meaningful in their own times but not all of them had the acknowledgement they should have had. They all are an inspiration to me.