Unearth

6 December 2024 - 31 Januari 2025

vrijdag 6 December – OPENING
18:00

Unearth is an exhibition by four contemporary artists based in Amsterdam Nieuw-West,
working with sculpture as their primary medium. Their practices share a similar
approach: a collaborative, intimate, creative process with the materials involved.
From examining texture and weight, to visualizing through chemical reactions and
erosion, every work highlights a different aspect of what it means to reveal, shape and
engage with what lies beneath the surface — to unearth. The exhibition represents a
physical manifestation of sculpture, while questioning the extractivist relationship of
capitalist society with our planet. It is an invitation to experience the transformation of
raw material and to reflect on what it means to unearth our individual and collective
connection to the tangible world.

“What I would propose (...) is a return to the notion of matter, not as site or
surface, but as a process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce
the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call matter.”
Judith Butler (Bodies that Matter, 1993)

Michele Bazzoli

Michele Bazzoli (IT, 1996), an Amsterdam-based artist, works and experiments with sculpture, installation, and digital media to explore the tension between human and non-human environments. His work, rooted in a deep ecological awareness, investigates how materials can act as mediators in our changing natural world. Bazzoli holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the Master Institute of Visual Cultures in the Netherlands and a BFA in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan.

Contact: michelebazzoli21@gmail.com / www.michelebazzoli.com / @michele_bazzoli

Thom van Hoek

Thom van Hoek (°1990) is an artist based in Amsterdam, creating temporary sculptures, photography and at times audiovisual work. After studying at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, he graduated in 2017 from at the Sandberg Instituut (Materialisation in Art & Design). He has been working in Nieuw-West ever since, doing residency programs in between. His work circles around the topics of ecology, the Symbiocene, climate change and our differentiation between artificiality and nature. He is interested in questioning definitions: what exactly is “liquid” or “inanimate”? When do we call something temporary? And why all these categories?

Contact: thvhoek@gmail.com / www.thomvhoek.eu / @tthxmyy

Laura Malpique

Laura Canha Malpique was born in Portugal in 1993. She moved to Amsterdam to study at the Gerrit Rietveld academy in 2010, and stayed until today where she remains working as a sculpture artist. She did a part of her studies in Kyoto, Japan.

Malpique has exhibited in several places in the Netherlands such as Frans Hals Museum, Arti et Amicitiae, gallery ADK, Kers gallery, art Rotterdam and Vishal Haarlem. Internationally she exhibited in Oaxaca, Mexico, in Kyoto, Japan and in Denmark. She has participated in the Odense sculpture triënnale, Denmark, with the creation of her first permanent public sculpture.

At the moment Laura Malpique is exhibiting at Cobra museum and starting a public sculpture work for the gemeentehuis Assen.

Contact: lauracanha@gmail.com / www.lauracanhamalpique.com / @lauramalpique

Vince Donders

Vince Donders (1991), graduated in 2017 at the Fine Art Department of AKV|St. Joost and finished the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in 2024.

"My work explores the complex relationship between human progress and ecological decline, with industrial landscapes and technology serving as both inspiration and concern due to their harmful environmental impact. My installations reflect the duality of progress and destruction, inviting reflection on how we shape our future."

Contact: vincedonders@gmail.com / @vincedonders