Felieke van der Leest
Published: 28.04.2025
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Statement
Animals have a special place in Felieke van der Leest's heart. She provides many animals with a busy social life as ornaments, gives a select group a nice home in museums and she placed a few oversized specimens in the center of everyone's attention in meeting rooms and stairwells. Jewellery, object or light fixture, the scale or function is not the aspect that inspires Van der Leest: the telling of unusual stories is always her main motivation.Van der Leest has enriched jewellery design with the introduction of textile techniques. Combining this with gold, silver and plastic, in ten years time she developed her own idiom. She drew from her childhood in Emmen where she would visit the local zoo and also from her metalsmith education in Schoonhoven. Her unbridled imagination later came to full bloom at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. For someone who normally works with hand sized pieces it is remarkable to develop monumental installations. Nevertheless, Van der Leest has already produced some 'jewels' for public spaces, cooperating with her cousin in Neef Nicht Design.
A continuous flow of her work now finds its way to numerous exhibitions. In addition, it is happily collected by individuals and museums through the galleries that represent her in Amsterdam, New York and Tokyo. A great milestone was the 2006 exhibition Jewellery Fables: the museum in Middlesbrough (mima) exhibited an overview of all her work and also published an accompanying catalogue.
Apart from the obvious fun her work sometimes shows an unexpected serious side. Contemporary issues such as the environment, dealing with animals and all kinds of social problems are touched upon. In this way, Van der Leest, like Jean de La Fontaine in his famous fables, shows us the other side of the coin. But her most important quality continues to be her unstoppable enthusiasm for making new pieces and the joy they give us, the spectators.
Ward Schrijver
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