Babs Haenen
Dutch ceramist Babs Haenen was born in Amsterdam in 1948 in the Netherlands. She is a world-renowned artist famous for her biomorphic ceramics, which are often described as expressive and impressionistic, wild and full of motion. Haenen was a professional dancer before joining the Gerrit Rietvleld Academy, where she studied from 1974 to 1979 with Geert Lap, Barbara Nanning and Paulus van Leeuwen. She later returned to teach at the Academy for 19 years.
As Haenen remembers, in the beginning, her work was found wild and frankly odd, especially domestically. The ceramic work of Haenen is typified by expressive and impressionistic qualities where colour, line and form all play an equal part. The painterly way in which she adorns her vessels demonstrates the way in which abstract painting inspires her; landscape motifs, such as rippling water, are recurring themes too. Haenen’s signature technique employs coloured slabs of porcelain, pigmented with subtle glimmers and a flare resembling watercolour painting and then moulded by hand and rolled into a thin sheet, which she then proceeds to cut and joins in a variety of patterns. This leads to a patchwork style of clay that constitutes lively, colourful, organic vessels with a dynamic inner choreography.
Garth Clark wrote an article about Haenen’s work in the catalogue ‘A decade of work’ on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Interior Dances’ in The Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics in Leeuwarden. Garth wrote “the inside is trying to become the outside”, and that specific sentence, according to the artist herself, captures her Turbulent Vessels work perfectly.
In her more recent pieces, Haenen has gone from vertical vessel forms to complex tabletop landscapes that might reference a Chinese mountain. These works, that hover above the line of art and craft, are composed by two or more separate pieces embellished in a painterly manner, highlighting the influence abstract painting and landscape motifs, like rippling water, have on her art.
Haenen has been collecting praise for decades, and there is no other way, but to speak enthusiastically of her future career. In 1987, she was awarded the Werbeurs Stichting Fonds voor Beeldende Kunsten-Vormgeving en Bouwkunst and, in 1990, the Werbeurs Ministerie van WVC. In 1991, she received the Inax Design Prize for Europe from Japan and held her first retrospective exhibition in The Princessehof National museum of Ceramics in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands.
Haenen continues to include her works in international exhibitions. Her pieces can be found all around the world’s most prestigious collections, including the permanent collections of several museums, such as the Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art in Shigaraki, Japan; the Museum of Fine Art in Boston or the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Her works are beloved in her home country, The Netherlands as well, where her works are part of the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Boijmans Museum van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and the Frans Hals Museum in the picturesque Haarlem. ~H.
The “Delfts Labyrinth” Vase has a strong sense of movement and harmony. Babs Haenen has a background in dance and often it seems as if she is choreographing her ceramics into one of a kind shapes and forms. Like many of Haenen’s works, this vase seems to have hardened from a liquid state, which shows off her great skill. The blue and white porcelain is the scene of an expressive play of shadows, cast by the labyrinth-like pattern.
The vase is made of coloured porcelain slabs that the artist manipulates by hand and are coloured with pigment and rolled exquisitely to form thin ribbons, folded in organic shapes. The result is a modern, yet classic appearance.
As the name suggests, the colours are inspired by the iconic Delft Blue ceramics, that originated in the 17th century. The blue is present in various shapes and shades; as saturated surfaces, as a diluted mixture, but also as fine lines on the curvature of the vase’s many forms. This exceptional ceramic work of Babs Haenen is expressive of her skill and artistic expression.
SOLD
Dimensions:
Ø 11.02 in x 12.40 in H
Ø 28 cm x 31.5 cm H
About the designer:
Babs Haenen, was born in Amsterdam in 1948. In 1979, she graduated with Geert Lap, Barbara Nanning and Paulus van Leeuwen at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. During her career, she has taught extensively, won a number of prestigious awards and has undertaken several high-profile, public commissions in The Netherlands.
Haenen creates expressive and impressionistic ceramics inspired by abstract paintings and landscapes of the 15th and 16th centuries. Her colourful and organic porcelain vessels feature dynamic lines and forms. Her work consists of different coloured slabs of clay using a technique known as slab building.
Haenen works with coloured porcelain creating a lot of shapes, patterns, and colours. Her work is in the permanent collections in several museums around the world, such as in the Netherlands, the United States, and Japan. Her expressive and inspired work makes Babs Haenen one of the most important contemporary ceramic artists.