Ceramic Works

Sticky Flies and Birds, installation at NQGallery Antwerp 2024

Amazing , porcelain engobe glaze epoxy clay, 2020-22

Big Sister II, porcelain engobe glaze, black epoxy clay, h. 54 cm, 2020-22

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……

Series Sisters porcelain engobe glaze epoxy clay Height between 48 and 56 cm, 2020-22

Walk with you, III porcelain stoneware engobe, h 52cm 2021

I see you II, 45x60x175cm, stoneware textile iron, 2021

I see you V and II, stoneware textile iron, 120x80x175cm and 70x40x170 cm, 2021

I see you, modular Ceramic work, heads and buste can be combined, stoneware engobe,
sundaymorning@EKWC, NL 2021

Out, porcelain stoneware engobe, 2021

Walk with you, I, II, III porcelain stoneware engobe glaze, h 52cm 2021

face, stoneware engobe, 2020

Just as Big I, porcelain stoneware engobe, 32x22x64cm, 2021-23

Just as Big II, porcelain goldtreath stoneware engobe glaze, 2021

My Boat II, porcelain stoneware engobe glaze, 18x36x35cm 2021

My Boat I, 15x20x32cm, black stoneware porcelain bone china glaze, 2021

Loaded … We carry, stoneware engobe glaze, h 55cm 2021

Loaded, stoneware porcelain engobe epoxy clay, 2021

les Fleurs, porcelain crystal glaze engobe stoneware, 10x14x47 cm and 22x14x56cm, 2021

series Sisters, porcelain epoxy clay engobe , h. 52 and 55cm, 2020

Idol H. and F., stoneware engobe glaze, h.52 cm, 2021

Sisters Series, porcelain, pigment, glaze, silk epoxyclay, h. 48cm, 2020-2022

With you, bone china porcelain pigment epoxy clay, 11x13x38cm, 2021

Sisters in Blue, porcelain glaze engobe epoxy clay, 2021

Sisters Series, porcelain engobe, h 52 cm 2020

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