Ready to Bear by Eva van Kempen

Artist list

Eva Van Kempen

Museum De Fundatie asked Eva van Kempen to make jewellery to be presented on busts created by various sculptors whose work has been purchased down the years. The artist has managed with this exhibition to ‘inject’ some sparkle underpinned by a sense of wryness into the often paradoxical themes of illness, life and death.

Van Kempen created something of a stir in 2015 with her LifeLines jewellery line, made from safe recycled hospital waste. With this jewellery, she demonstrated the inherent exquisiteness and value of a range of medical equipment and implements. This came as a revelation to her when undergoing a series of intensive medical procedures in the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. Once recovered, Van Kempen felt the desire to work with hospital materials. It provided a conduit for coming to terms with certain events and accepting her own mortality. At the same time, she presented an open invitation to reconsider these materials from an alternative viewpoint.