Annabelle Schatteman

Born 1971 Ghent, Annabelle Schatteman is a sculptor based in Den haag. She Studied art in Ghent, Shanghai and Den Haag and is one of the initiators of the cultural incubator `SeeLab` in Den Haag. In her art Schatteman is telling stories. According to Schatteman, stories are the only way not to forget and to transcend time and space. Besides constructing her own narrative, she is inspired by the commonly known iconografy of the female. In her own narrative she focusses on the warrior woman with her paradoxical strenght and the mother who is the embodiment of life and death. She is always looking for new ways and materials to invigorate these themes. Masks and shields are recurrent elements in Schatteman`s work. Working method How to make your own story? To reinvent yourself over and again. Surprise yourself. I like to call myself a sculpting writer. Every project I make is like writing a book. Every sculpture a chapter in that book. There is a remote idea, a story I want to tell, something I want to talk about and somehow I know where I am heading at, but all the sentences of the book still need to be filled in and there is, along the way, always the search for the right style in which to tell it. That`s how I work. Intuitively and project guided. A story in a space. Along the way there are many objects that come to be a `thing` and sometimes they become a `work` that has a role to play. Very often they just land in the clay recycler. The material necessary to say what I want to say is the right material for that specific work. Clay is a home play for me but I also like to work with other materials like foam or plaster or paper. While working, I broaden and deepen the view on my subject and this drives me to go on. Like I am on some sort of quest with clues along the way. Life, Literature, representation of women throughout history and archaeological natural and anthropological museums are my biggest source of inspiration. I am easily moved by Artifacts that have survived the ravages of time. For me temporality is the most frustrating concept of life. I think that all my work is born out of that frustration. There is an urge to counter and at the same time accept it, which I do by allowing all the cracks and imperfections that occur in the process to become an integrated part of the final work.