Artist Statement

Standing still is NOT going backwards ...

I am a contemporary visual artist working with found, weathered, and out-of-use materials — wood, paper, textiles, and metal — each carrying the quiet marks of time and human touch. I do not search for them; they seem to find me. Imperfect, eroded, and forgotten, they arrive as silent witnesses, bearing traces of stories, of use, of loss. By giving them a new life, I offer a gentle resistance to the relentless demands for perfection, speed, and consumption.

My practice embraces imperfection, atrophy, and stillness. I work with the fragile pages of old books — encyclopedias, novels, volumes of poetry — as well as punch cards from the textile industry, once tools of early computing. In my sculptural works, I assemble worn materials and tools, releasing them from their original function and allowing new constellations to emerge. Geometry, symmetry, and repetition create a dialogue between order and decay, structure and fragility. This balance is rooted in my background as a graphic designer, yet softened by the raw tactility of the materials.

Underlying my practice is an engagement with the body — not as a fixed image, but as a lived, sensing presence. Physical experience, including limitation and vulnerability, informs how I work, often remaining implicit rather than visible. Pain, in this context, is both invisible and deeply present; it shapes perception, movement, and attention. Through material and gesture, I explore how the body holds memory, how it absorbs time, and how inner experiences might surface without becoming explicit narratives.

The materials I work with carry traces of use, erosion, and time, and can be approached as bearers of experience — not unlike the body itself, which registers memory, fragility, and resilience. My work often unfolds in the tension between what is visible and what remains hidden, where meaning emerges gradually, through attention and proximity.

Walking is an essential part of my process. In nature, I find both the mental space and the sensitivity my work requires. Walking slows me down, opens perception, and allows associations to surface. In the studio, I let objects rest until the right constellation appears — quietly, but with certainty. The process is slow, intuitive, and deliberate.

I want my work to offer a space of pause — where the gaze lingers, where small details reveal themselves, and where layers of time can be felt as much as seen. Titles sometimes carry a subtle shift in meaning, a quiet gesture that invites a closer reading.

Inspired by Eastern philosophical traditions, I approach stillness, interconnection, and wonder not as passive states, but as active forms of attention. My work reflects a belief that slowing down is not a retreat, but a way of reorienting — a way of listening more closely to what is often overlooked.

In essence, my work is an invitation: to engage with imperfection, to sense the continuity between past and present, and to reflect on the subtle connections between body and matter, memory and material, the visible and the unseen.

Marinda Vandenheede