Name Wietske Leeuwen | ||
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Wietske van Leeuwen (born September 22, 1965 in Rotterdam) is a Dutch ceramist, who lives and works in Monnickendam. Her works are constructed in a baroque style, with shells and fruit as recurring motifs.
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Life and work
Born in Rotterdam to Sjoerd and Marianne van Leeuwen, Van Leeuwen grew up in Mijnsheerenland. Her father ran a timber trading company in Overschie, and her uncle is the photographer Piet van Leeuwen (born 1942). She studied handicrafts and textile art at the teacher education in Delft from 1984 to 1989, and ceramic design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam from 1989 to 1993 under Jan van der Vaart, and Henk Trumpie.
After graduation she settled in Amsterdam as independent artist and started her own studio. In 1996 Van Leeuwen was nominated for the NPS Cultuurprijs 1996, a battle between jung unknown artists on national television weekly in ten programs in the summer of 1996. In 1997 here work participated in the conceptual Shark Art Gallery in Rotterdam by Marcel Douwe Dekker, where the work was exhibited down deep in a tank with white sharks (see, image).
Van Leeuwen received a number of grants from the Mondriaan Fonds, Dutch Foundation for Visual Arts. Since 1997 she is also working as teacher ceramics and drawing at Altra College, Amsterdam.
Work of Van Leeuwen is present in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and the Princessehof Ceramics Museum.
Reception
At the Studio Pottery website the Dutch Galery Carla Koch (2008) gave the following description of the motives in the work and motivation behind the work:
Van Leeuwen creates strikingly baroque objects, made up of many small prints of shells and fruit, which remind of the curio cabinets that were in fashion in the 17th century and admired by her. It was in vogue among the wealthy merchants of that era to collect new types of fruit and shells that were brought back by the VOC ships, in such cabinets. Van Leeuwen uses shells and fruit to make plaster press moulds, which are then used for producing large quantities of prints. From these prints she creates her objects, always using the pot or dish shape as a basis. Her objects are flawless both on the inside and outside, a ceramic tour de force. She uses dishes and pots with lids as her base shapes. In addition, she creates combinations of ceramic "garnitures", which were also common during the 17th century."In 2010 the Kunsthal exhibited modern ceramic art collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen with works of multiple generations of Dutch ceramists. Work was shown from the beginning of the 20th century with Chris Lanooij (1881-1948) and Hein Andrée (1882-1961), more contemporary artists as Johan van Loon (1934), Jan van der Vaart (1931-2000), Barbara Nanning (1957), Geert Lap and Olaf Stevens, and work by Esther Stasse and Wietske van Leeuwen representing the last generation.