Women in Art - Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam - International Women's Day

The artwork will be unveiled March 8 at 3 p.m. in the presence of the artist (walk-in 14:30). We kindly invite you to be present at the unveiling.

The artworks of Hester Oerlemans (1961) are interventions on everyday reality. In a playfully poetic, but also critical way, Oerlemans shows her perception of the world. The viewer is taken along in her visual language and more than once surprised by the serious layering of the work and the great diversity in the material used. 

The artwork 'BLOB X18' 2020 is part of a series of sculptures titled Fixing Air. The sculptures were created during a residency in Xiamen, China during the first outbreak of Covid 19. The series explores the possibility of fixing air in a sculpture. Each sculpture begins with the inflation of balloons of all shapes and sizes. These balloon assemblies are inserted into a larger balloon, already filled with air, through a precise process. This is then vacuumed to achieve its final shape. The skin of the sculpture is finished by being sealed in layers of epoxy to transform rubber and air into a thin but resistant layer. The sculptures, ‘Blobs’ are reminiscent of both implosion and expansion, of holding on and letting go. The result is an exciting play between recognition and estrangement.

Oerlemans recently won the ROOF-A Art Award, a biennial art prize specifically for women artists; two women, two generations. This award aims to connect women artists from different generations to exchange knowledge and experience, support and inspire each other; in search of intergenerational strength and gender balance in the arts.

*Location: to the left of the Erasmus Gallery AB-57 in the corridor between Aula Erasmus Building and Theil Building C-hal - Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam.