About Nadine van Veldhuizen

Nadine van Veldhuizen builds sculptures with various materials such as glass, clay, cardboard, metal, wood, paint, and epoxy. Using drawings as a starting point, she explores the boundaries of disruption while sketching. By using recognizable elements, postures, and forms, while failing and developing, she highlights opposites. Which appear in the form of balancing human figures and well-thought-out sightlines in her sculptures. She translates her observations on society and reflection of herself into different techniques. Ultimately, with her works, Van Veldhuizen wants to reflect on human resilience and the beauty in life.

Her sculpture Adri originated from the family history of the artist. Nadine van Veldhuizen’s great-grandfather was in the resistance during the Second World War. This inspired her to ask family members what being a resistance fighter means to them. All answers had in common that they see in the resistance fighter as someone who rises above themselves. Van Veldhuizen started sketching with this idea and a phoenix was created, a mythical figure that can rise from its own ashes. At the same time, a voluptuous female body emerged in the sketch, comparable to Botticelli’s Venus. She starts building from the centre of the figure and extends it upwards, finally adding a framework. Grounded in a foundation of clay and concrete, the woman phoenix rises with her transparent wings, indeed as if she were rising above herself.