Babs Haenen

Participant in the exhibition Blanc de Chine, a Continuous Conversation at the V&A. Till 10 May 2020
Winner of the Van Achterbergh prize 2020: The prize is awarded in November 2020 in Ceramics Museum Princessehof in Leeuwarden where at that time the exhibition opens with the work of Babs Haenen.

In the January/February 2020 issue of the KLEI keramiek magazine an article about Babs Haenen is to be seen at pag.08-pag.11

FLOW – exclusive collection;
made and designed by the artist Babs Haenen.

Each piece in Flow has its own identity, but together they form a closely related ‘Family of Vessels’ including cups, beakers, bowls and other sensual utensils, longing to be touched.
The collection is inspired by the melding of impressive waterfalls in China and the Dutch Seashore. ‘Water is closely linked to movement, which is one of the key motives of my work’.
In this series I created a new casting technique in which color, drawing and structure effects eachother; basic shapes are represented in lively sculptural relief, covered with floating, scintillating colors and patterns. Numerious combinations of the colors are organically integrated, remeniscent of Far Eastern calligraphy and the abstract expressionist paintings of Jackson Pollack. Handmade in my studio in Jingdezhen, the ‘Porcelain Capital’ of China., with a pottery making history streching back almost 2.000 years, all Flow items firmly root into tradition. The rim is a refined, stylized sunflower shaped edge.
The porcelain is super white and translucent. Fired up to a temperature of 1320 centigrade. The colored porcelain is made by mixing pigments into the white porcelain. Black, blue, orange and combinations of the three are drawn into the moulds to give each item its own personality.