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Anne van Eck
Solo Exhibition at RAM or Art Fair:
Year Title  
2006 'Sculptures'
2005 Different Dimensions
2005 Project Rotterdam
2004 Preview
2004 “Creatura”
2003 'Creatura'
Group Exhibition or Art Fair:
Year Title
2017 "Up Memory Lane"
2006 Art Rotterdam
Editions in our Shop:
Year Title
2003 Creatura 1,5
2004 Creatura 1,1
2004 Andre
 
 
Van Eck’s sculptures can be seen unequivocally as symbols of birth, death and transitoriness. Her work reveals a compassion with all that is vulnerable. In order to keep the clay sculptures from drying out - which would lead irrevocably to fractures and disintegration - they need to be continuously watered. Just as with real animals the survival of the slippery-wet beasts is a question of continuous care. Often after an exhibition the artist decides to perform euthanasia on her sculptures by withdrawing the intensive care. Recently Van Eck began to experiment with materials of a more permanent character such as modelling wax, latex, polyester and ceramics. Nevertheless these sculptures appear to be just as frail as her clay sculptures. Except for the association one makes with new born animals who can barely tolerate the light of day, these sculptures evoke visions of laboratory animals, clones or other artificial interventions performed on nature by man. Van Eck’s sculptures are also about creation in a more metaphorical sense. Her work has been compared to the Jewish myth of Golem, where a human, fashioned out of clay, is brought to life. In a similar way, against one’s better judgement, Van Eck wants to breathe life into a lifeless substance; an endeavour that is irrevocably doomed to fail. For example when her pet rat died, as a substitute, she kneaded a bigger than life-size model out of clay. Van Eck’s creatures assume a place somewhere on the border-line between life and death – their look is at once disturbing and impressionable.

Roel Arkestijn is curator at the GEM, museum of contemporary art, Den Haag

*The title refers to the book by Leo Vroman, Warm, rood, nat en lief (1994)
 
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