1 – 4 July 2021
Art Rotterdam 2021
It is our pleasure to invite you to Art Rotterdam, which this year takes place from 1 - 4 July. In the Young Art Section, we show a presentation of textile sculptures, ceramics and collages by Saar Scheerlings. We hope to see you at the fair. Buy your tickets via artrotterdam.com
Sculptures and Thrones
Unfolding a tea box provided Saar Scheerlings (Eindhoven, 1990) a form. She decided to paint it the way she saw at a weavers' village in the Himalayas. These forms took on a life of their own they led to sculptures and most recently to thrones.
Saar builds to the material culture of a fictitious civilization. Inspired by ethnographic collections in museums, textile crafts and building methods the work is a search for a sense of inspiration and meaning such as we know from ancient cultures and religious artifacts like Talismans.
In doing so, Saar looks at traditional ways of making. She works with second-hand materials such as mattresses from a bankrupt holiday park, fabrics from old theaters and from fashion brands or clothes from thrift stores. In in contrast to the speed and technologization of today's society, Saar's sculptures are a plea for craftsmanship and durability. The special fabrics in her sculptures get where they are straight to have a life as a work of art.
After graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven, Saar Scheerlings set out on a path that has led to the creation of visual art. Her art is an endless mill of production, constantly susceptible to outside influences. It is a process like a trade route or port where all kinds of previously unknown things can influence each other. Her work has been shown in various international museum shows, such as Zuiderzeemuseum, Fries Museum, Design Museum Gent and Dutch Parade, Hanwha Galleria Seoul, South Korea. Saar lives and works in the remote village of Saint Thibault, France.
Installation views
Artist
Saar Scheerlings
Born in Eindhoven in 1990, Saar Scheerlings embarked on her artistic journey after studying at the Design Academy Eindhoven and gaining experience as a chef and theater designer. Scheerlings mixes the disciplines of art, design and craft to find processes that give rise to new types and expressions. Her work includes large ceramic vessels that serve as painted maps, decanters that seem unwilling to pour, paintings that resemble fabrics and soft monumental sculptures. For her, a medium is not defined: she prefers to create her own playing field and associated rules. A great interest in daily life probably comes from her education in design, but she is not very interested in the way products are industrially designed, made and used. She prefers to see forms as intermediate phases of a creative process, a game, a tradition, a ritual, a culinary dish. It is the commitment to this process that gives objects meaning. Saars work is often triggered by the beauty and dedication of old materials like the antique linens she finds at garage sales in the French countryside where she lives. With a laborious process of sculpting, cutting, sewing and weaving she breathes new life into these materials, transforming them into her monumental talisman sculptures. Weaving is not only a technique for Saar, it is a metaphor for her entire work. She sees her oeuvre as an expanding structure. She not only creates work, she works on her own culture. The work of Saar Scheerlings has been shown in various international galleries and museums including CoBrA Museum, Design Museum Gent, Hanwha Galleria Seoul, Tripostal Lille, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Valerius Gallery, HAGD Contemporary, De Nederlandsche Bank, Garage Rotterdam and at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, as a finalist for the prestigious Loewe Foundation Craft Prize.
More about Saar Scheerlings →