HOW IT FEELS TO GROW WITHIN

2025

For the exhibition Good Mom/Bad Mom at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, I created the work How It Feels To Grow Within in collaboration with the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (WKZ). As an artist-in-residence, I spent several days shadowing staff in the ultrasound department, where I observed how pregnancies are visualised and what emotions this evokes, whether the news is good or bad.

Filled with new impressions, I returned to my studio and embarked on a new direction: for the first time I worked with papier-mâché, which gave me the freedom to work with layers, forms and textures that make the physicality tangible. The result is a dynamic work in which physiological forms alternate with references to the plant kingdom, growth, expectation, physical strength and the fragility that is always present in the background of an pregnancy.

How It Feels To Grow WIthin
2025
146 x 113  x 21 cm
Paper-maché and cardboard with ebru-print, metalic foil, gold leaf, gouache, coloured pencil and oilpastels