
Too confusing times, stoneware, series I see you, slib pigment cork fiber resin styrofoam, 2025
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My brains are popping out, from the series I see you, modelair heads, stoneware glaze engobe, 2025
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untittled, from the series I see you, modelair heads, stoneware glsze engobe, 2025
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untitled, series I see you, modelair heads, stoneware glaze engobe cork, 50x40x145cm, 2024
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R. , stoneware, 38x45x43cm, 2025
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Loved you, stoneware glaze, 38x32x9 cm, 2024
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I’m your fungus, stoneware glaze engobe nylon, 2024
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I’m your flower, stoneware glaze, 2024
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J.J., stoneware glaze nylon, 2024
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My parents wouldn’t mind if I was a cat, stoneware glaze nylon, 2024
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No return, stoneware glaze engobe, 2024
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studio Installation My Life, stoneware glaze, 2024
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Dream, porcelain nylon, h. 52cm, 2020-24
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I’m your cloud, porcelain engobe, nylon, 55cm, 2020-24
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The Maiden, the Dame and the Girl, porcelain pigment, nylon, h. 52/54 cm, 2020-24
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Sticky Flies, porcelain stoneware glaze, 2020/2025
I started the Sticky Fly series as testing angels when working @ekwc_oisterwijk for three months in 2020. I had my own studio worked 24/7 it was so much fun. I knew testing clay, porcelain, glaze was part of the deal learning working with clay, but I didn’t want to do boring tiles so I made two molds of angels or Icarus.
I called the Angels : Sticky Fly because testing is challenging, irritating and fun too, playing waiting Wauw!!!!
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I’m after me, stoneware slib pigment textile polyurea chair, 55x55x142cm, 2023
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Amazing , porcelain engobe glaze epoxy clay, 2020-22
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Big Sister II, porcelain engobe glaze, black epoxy clay, h. 54 cm, 2020-22
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For years, I have travelled to barren landscapes where volcanoes bulge from the earth’s crust, in search of the wonder and history of these earth layers. In the garden around my studio as well, I searched in miniature, saw beautiful plants growing out of dirty, greasy clay soil. Beautiful contrast. Of course I make my own compost to complete the circle. This also brought human activity into the picture. From obsidian arrowheads and tools at the volcanoes long ago to agriculture now.
In 2012, I started making sculptures of people out of straw, hay, cement, plaster. Materials from or of the earth’s crust. First small, about 60 centimetres. But soon there were also three full-size figures. Clay beckoned, but I did not know how to use it.
In 2017, during an art residency at Our Beloved Lady abbey in Oosterhout, NL, I had the former textiles studio, full of remnants of fabrics at my disposal! This is how silk and wool came into my work. These coloured layers bring a refinement, softness to the raw skin of the sculptures. Contrast. This new material was a leap forward and alerted me to wanting to use more new materials. This is how the desire to use clay and porcelain took shape.
In late 2020, I did an art residency at the Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum (EKWC, European Ceramics Work Centre) in Oisterwijk, NL.
For years, I have been furiously curious about clay. I look at Rebecca Warren and am touched. My work is about transitions. More and more different layers come to the surface. What I wanted was to make sculptures that consist of different layers. Physically different layers as well. Stacked on top of each other or superimposed. Also fired, raw, glazed, clay, porcelain, aqueous, greasy. I did not know the limits of clay; I had never felt them. I wanted to search for the limits of what is possible and, if possible, exceed them.
I could not do that sufficiently on my own in my studio, but with the help of the fabulous facilities and assistance at the EKWC, it became research and experiment that lasted 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for three months.
It grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. I kept seeing more and more new options in casting, working with moulds and eventually hand forming. Both in stoneware and porcelain. Then there was colour…. glaze and especially engobe. Discovering so much was a feast, and I will definitely continue with this……
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Series Sisters porcelain engobe glaze epoxy clay Height between 48 and 56 cm, 2020-22
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I see you II, 45x60x175cm, stoneware textile iron, 2021
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In 2024 I added this wig, As long as my sculptures are around I live with them and take them with me in time.
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I see you V and II, stoneware textile iron, 120x80x175cm and 70x40x170 cm, 2021
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I see you, modular Ceramic work, heads and buste can be combined, stoneware engobe,
@EKWC, NL 2020
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Out, porcelain stoneware engobe, 2021
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Walk with you, III porcelain stoneware engobe, h 52cm 2021
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Walk with you, I, II, III porcelain stoneware engobe glaze, h 52cm 2021
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face, stoneware engobe, 2020
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Just as Big I, porcelain stoneware engobe, 32x22x64cm, 2020-23
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Just as Big II, porcelain goldtreath stoneware engobe glaze, 2021
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My Boat II, porcelain stoneware engobe glaze, 18x36x35cm 2021
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My Boat I, 15x20x32cm, black stoneware porcelain bone china glaze, 2021
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Loaded … We carry, stoneware engobe glaze, h 55cm 2020
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Loaded, stoneware porcelain engobe epoxy clay, 2020
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les Fleurs, porcelain crystal glaze engobe stoneware, 10x14x47 cm and 22x14x56cm, 2021
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series Sisters, porcelain epoxy clay engobe , h. 52 and 55cm, 2020
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Idol H. and F., stoneware engobe glaze, h.52 cm, 2021
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Sisters Series, porcelain stoneware pigment, glaze, silk epoxyclay, h. 48cm, 2020-2022
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With you, bone china porcelain pigment epoxy clay, 11x13x38cm, 2021
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Sisters in Blue, porcelain glaze engobe epoxy clay, 2021
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Sisters Series, porcelain engobe, h 52 cm 2020
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Detail Sticky flies
About the AiR text Nico Thone
Sundaymorning@ekwc is an international artist-in-residence and centre-of-excellence for ceramics. Bolhuis worked there from sep-dec 2020
Sticky flies is what Marieke Bolhuis (NL) calls her test Angels and Icarus’s. She extensively experimented with these molded figures. Glory and failure were never as close. The next moulds she made became a family group of 72 members; series Sisters and Models Moulds. She started with one clay figure, casted, added an extra layer of clay, casted and so on for the third time. They all originated from the same ‘Mother’. The keywork, I see you, became the series of modular psychological portraits of contemporary man. Busts and heads can be combined showing layers and meaningof the now and present
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Sticky flies, stoneware porcelain bone china engobe glaze, 2020
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Models Mould, installation EKWC Oisterwijk NL


Sisters and Big Sister @ ARTZuid, Amsterdam 2021
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I made billboards to properly estimate the size of the porcelain to the sculptures
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Series NOW!, porcelain pigment, height 52cm, 2020
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PH 10, porcelain stoneware textile, 12x8x65cm, 2020
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Phalarina’s, installation, h. around 60cm, stoneware porcelain fiber, 2020
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PH. no 7, stoneware fiber, 110x20x15cm, 2019
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.me
me, stoneware glaze glass textile, 2019