Skeletons

Artist list

Aurélie Dellasanta

Finitude has disappeared from our daily life. Good health is taken for granted and our only concern is the materialistic excitement about the latest model or tomorrow's fashion. 

While travelling through India the young French artist Aurélie Dellesanta realised that in her own European culture there was no longer a natural place for illness and death.
Over the centuries skulls and skeletons were presented as vanitas symbols. Not only in sculpture or paintings, but they also played their part in jewellery. It produced a spectacular contrast: the most precious materials were used to remind mankind of the vulnerability of the body and as warning against conceit. 

In the exhibition at Galerie Rob Koudijs Dellasanta tries once again to hold up a mirror to mankind. Each of the brooches and pendants emphasises a different aspect of self complacency: the glamour of a pin-up, the temptation of adornment or the comfort of exuberance. 

Aurélie Dellasanta comes at exactly the right time in a society that is in search of new rituals concerning death. Yet her jewellery is also a call to enjoy life fully and in all it's complexity. Her work is the living proof of such an approach. 


Ward Schrijver