As a child, I wanted to fly, be released from the ground. As a visual artist, I like to turn things around, lift them up, or suspend them from the ceiling; down becomes up and faraway is pulled up close. I like to create an illusion of floating – a different perspective – recognising that everything is interconnected; the ground beneath our feet, the world above and around us. The firmament embraces and connects – an intrinsically strong and vulnerable interconnection.
In materials I seek both resistance and softness; in recent years I've been working with copper. Copper is a patient material: the process of heating, cooling and shaping, it's like breathing in and breathing out.
Series of work allows me to expand on an idea or form, each work having its own autonomy. On occasion I assemble them into an in-situ work, a temporary universe.
It is a fragile balance between nothing and something, between rising and falling, between load and float.
Jolanda Meulendijks, 2023
