Karolien Hamers
Karolien Hamers (Genk, 1982) is primarily an in situ artist who makes installations. She lives and works in Antwerp, near central station. Karolien was first educated as a theatre costume designer, before being educated as a sculptor at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerpen. At first she created figurative works such as her life sized rhino ‘Lowlands’ from 2005. But she evolved into an abstract artist who’s main subject now is migration. Migration not so much as a political phenomon but as a constant in nature. And as such applies to both man and animal. As well as to her art which adapts to each new space it migrates to itself. Never the same: migratory adaptations. Her work is modular and plays with planes and dimensions as she finds them, in ever changing constellations. In her current work she uses ‘simple’ materials such as wood, cardboard, tape and rope. To these materials she applies acrylic, Chinese ink and crayon. Her three dimensional works that seem to reduce spaces to abstract planes by utilizing the walls, ceilings and floors, are often the basis for her photographs that finalize this reduction. these photographs are printed on wood or brushed aluminium
We build fictitious sedentary places for ourselves. We live on a ‘stage’. Our original hiding places have devolved into a dominant landscape.