Plasticized Petrified

From soft, malleable clay to a fossilized narrative or abstraction. In the exhibition at De Firma Kunstcentrum Gouda, four artists with a deep love for clay—Riëlle Beekmans, Yvonne Halfens, Ilona Senghore, and Roos Langendorff—bring their worlds together under the title “Malleable, Fossilized.”

Riëlle Beekmans displays unglazed sculptures, allowing the clay’s surface to remain visible. She also presents her ‘squeezes’ series. Clay she has cradled in her hands; the clay fills the space between her fingers and becomes visible once her hands have released it. This gentle gesture has been petrified in the kiln. 

In her ceramic figures, Yvonne Halfens explores identity beyond realism. Her sculptures hover between silence and speech, inside and outside. Using glazes, slibs, pigments, markers, wall paint, and ceramic transfers, Yvonne creates poetic stories in clay.

In Ilona Senghore’s work, we see symbolic ceramics with stylized, figurative forms. They are, as it were, solidified stories about our surroundings, in which Senghore draws on deep impressions of, among other things, cultural-historical symbols, but also the oppressive reality of dementia that she encounters in her work as a well-being counselor.

The imperfection of nature and the flaws in the fabric of life form the quiet force behind Roos Langendorff’s sculptures. Although her work initially appears tranquil, beneath the surface lies a process of searching, experimenting, and letting go. For Roos, clay is the ideal material to give shape to that movement. It invites intuitive work and moving with whatever emerges.

The Gouda Ceramics Days, May 14 and 15
During the Gouda Ceramics Days, the artists will be present and invite you to create a clay sculpture with them. The clay will be ready from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM! Come See! Join In!