Isabelle Andriessen

The work of Isabelle Andriessen (1986) is situated on the interface between performance and sculpture. She strives to stretch the properties of synthetic materials to give inanimate matter a metabolism and a certain “agency”. Using electricity and chemicals, she manipulates materials such as aluminum, epoxy and ceramics so that they continuously melt, sweat, leak, crystallize and react to each other and to the conditions of the exhibition space. With her 'performative' sculptures she forms complex installations that are dominated by active materials with their own, autonomous behavior.

Andriessen, who worked as an artist in resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2017 and 2018, sheds new light on the dark behavior of materials with her work. She wonders, for example, what would happen if synthetic materials had human properties or a hidden agenda. On the one hand, she is inspired by scientific speculation and science fiction. On the other hand, she makes use of scientific facts and consciously intertwines multiple material processes in different timelines to generate certain effects. The works thus become sinister 'performers' who are continuously active and who continue to develop – often irreversibly – into an unpredictable choreography during the exhibition.