Vanitas (1) Wieki Somers

Consume or Conserve?  2010

Delicious decadent, High teapot 2003

I find the deep fantasy of Wieki Somers' work and its intense awareness very stimulating. I am very much moved by the subtle and contradictory way she questions our aesthetic feeling. Her insightful creativity sometimes challenges us to rethink some our most established rituals and values.  With "Consume or conserve?" she diverts the visual language of vanitas paintings of the 16th and 17th century by applying it to contemporory banal electric devices, a toaster or a vaccum cleaner. With "High teapot" she introduces uneasyness in a bourgeois ritual moment: "horror and delight, celebration and menace" the work presentation announces ... Browsing her site is highly revigorating,  Studio Wieki Somers.

Kitchens with Tiles

Robin's studio flat by French interior decorator Marianne Evennou, 

Parisian concept store Merci

Metro tiles by Marianne Evennou

Styling: Stella Nicolaisen, Agent Bauer via Me and Alice

"Witjes" by Royal Tichelaar Makkum

Zelliges by Agnès Emery

Royal Tichelaar Makkum

B-set ceramics service by Hella Jongerius for Royal Tichelaar Makkum

Frysian clay

Royal Tichelaar Makkum is one of the Netherlands' oldest company.It lives up to a long lineage but does not let itself tie down by the chains of history. The projects developed with iconic designers of our time like Marcel Wanders are fascinating. I love the mix of tradition and design. Let's add that the ceramics are still made with Frysian clay as in Golden century, an inspiring blend between history and modernity. René Knip and his wife Jorien van Nes received Hella Jongerius'B-set as a wedding gift;could you spot it in the blue niche of their dining room?