Mart Schrijvers

Mart studied landscape design in her native Brussels, Belgium, before relocating to Berlin in the mid-nineties to work as a landscape architect in urban developments. She currently lives and works in France.

Mart furthered her education at CNIFOP in Puisaye, Burgundy, one of France's premier ceramic schools. There, she received training in turning and enamelling techniques. Following a period of crafting utilitarian pottery, her independent research led her to forsake enamel in favour of a deeper exploration of the 'turning' process, using unfired ware for more expressive purposes.

In the creation of her distinctive biscuit porcelain forms, Mart begins by rolling the clay into a slab of uniform thickness, breaking it into small segments. Each segment is then rolled, with one end flattened to shape individual stamen or petal-like forms. These pieces are joined together with slip in a staggered arrangement to compose the final object. The completion of each piece can take up to a month. For Mart, this systematic technique serves as a kind of meditation, and she articulates:

"The work is progressing so slowly that I could ask myself at any moment, why are you doing this? But I refuse to ask myself the question. The important thing is that the activity continues, beyond the meaning it may or may not have."

With an enduring fascination for gardens and the surrounding countryside, Mart's creations draw inspiration from observing nature and the changing seasons. As a landscaper at heart and by training, her pieces evoke the architectural elements of nature, reminiscent of the stems of fungi emerging from decaying wood or the intricate petals of flowers like chrysanthemums and hydrangeas.