Elwy Schutten

Statement

In this text you could expect me to write about my identity. I can talk about my education as a goldsmith and my study at the Willem de Kooning Academy after which I continued further at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design Maastricht. I was born in Lichtenvoorde, a village in the east of the Netherlands and now I live and work in Maastricht. But is this my identity? Now you know the basic data about me, but not who I am.
 
If I would show you a picture of me, you would know more about me. Because clothing and jewellery say something about who you are. When you see a particular piece of jewellery it speaks to you, it gives you information. But how does that work? How can a piece of jewellery talk about identity?
 
Look closer at my face, at my hair and skin. I have blonde hair and a Western European appearance. You don’t see any wrinkles yet, but sometimes a bit of acne. Now you could maybe tell my age and cultural background. But how can you read this from my face? Is it the skin that tells you this? Does your face also provide some basic information like jewellery does? How can a face talk about identity?
 
Your identity is something from within that manifests itself. Your own thoughts and feelings are private, protected by your skin. The outside is visible and understandable for people, but some thoughts and feelings still appear on the skin. The skin as a border of your private perspective and the public world… and a mirror of your private perspective. The skin is a place where your private perspective becomes your identity.
 
This is what my work is about. I want to ask questions about identity and show that identity is what makes us individual. Are our identities more similar than we assume? What is identity and how does it manifest itself?

CV      

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