Work in progress

Self-portraits 2020

About

Dominique Zwartelé
domitele(at)gmail.com
+31(0)6 1340 4896
Amsterdam NL

Artist statement

Urban cultures manufacture, just to throw away and replace. These discarded materials include plastics, glass, textiles, ceramics, metals. This debris of everyday life continues to exist around us, weathering and maturing in a nomadic state.

The magic of making for me is discovering a new context for these found materials. I reimagine their boundaries and meaning. Two car doors become the wings of a goddess. Found objects from city districts become totems marking the territories of unseen tribes.

In 2018 my work took an unexpected turn. While walking on a beach I find myself surrounded by plastic thrown up from the sea. Broken, faded, eroded. Some pieces have been in the water for years, and have morphed out of all recognition. I have stumbled upon a new source of discarded urban materials in one of nature’s purest locations.

Since that first chance discovery, beaches have become my prime source of material for a continuing series of small-scale works. Using debris discovered in nature brings with it a responsibility: re-contextualising the plastic soup which we read so much about demands that these small-scale ‘treasures’ become unexpected statements of beauty.

Exhibitions

2021
May – September
Sustainability Art (travelling group show)
May – June
FABRIKA (in cooperation with the Moscow Museum of Modern Art), Moscow RU
August – September
M. Vrubel State Art Museum, Omsk RU

2020
January 3 – 26
De Kunst van het Verzamelen (group)
Galerie PLAYroom, Zaandam NL

2019
February 8 – 10
OBJECT (group)
Art Rotterdam, HAKA building, Rotterdam NL

2018
November 18 – January 6
VERS (group)
JANSEN KOOY Gallery, Warnsveld NL

July 4-7
DOGtime Graduation Show (group)
Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam NL

2017
Si.Si.Spex 7, DOGtime (group)
Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam NL

2016
For who do you cry (performance)
Bookstore Project, Amsterdam NL

2015
Uncut (group)
De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam NL

Group show
Brinkhuis, Laren NL

2014
BIT(e)S (group)
Sixty One Gallery, Amsterdam NL

2013
DIY Light Project (group)
TNT building, Amsterdam NL

2012
Uncut (group)
De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam NL

Art Education

2013-2018
Bachelor of Fine Arts, DOGtime, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

1993-1995
Master clarinet, ARTEZ, Zwolle