By Alichia van Rhijn
2023
glazed earthenware
22x20x13cm
$1,400
ARTIST STATEMENT
‘Blomme’ by Alichia van Rhijn, presents sculptural works that reference early memories of childhood, both before her immigration to Australia and after. When her Ouma (Grandmother) passed last year, van Rhijn began thinking about the roles of flowers within her own heritage and memories; as well as the women in her life; their flower gardens and what flowers meant to them.
Visceral memories of exploring her great aunt’s overgrown rose garden; watching her Ouma plant flower seedlings; and picking roadside blooms with her mother and sisters began to arise - shifting and changing as they spanned the fluidity of time.
These explorations of femininity and Matriarchal structures and bonds have resulted in a series of works alluding to the memories of a childhood spent surrounded by flowers and the strong women who grew and collected them.
These forms investigate phenomenological notions, alluding to personal and shared experience, memory, nostalgia and trauma. Through the use of distilled minimalist forms, symbolic and ritualistic totems are presented, hoping to initiate pause and contemplation.
BIO
van Rhijn’s installations catalogue her experience of displacement through material investigation, where memory and experience of place are key elements. ‘Making as thinking’ paired with an experimental approach to process and technology underpins the creation of objects that float between the real and a child-like whimsical world that elicits an urge to interact and play.
Alichia van Rhijn is a South African born Australian artist. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Ceramics) from The National Art School and has a passion for creating sculptural and installation-based objects and forms that examine memory, trace, trauma, experience and loss.