Solo exhibition by Maaike Kramer

27 April – 25 May

Finissage: Saturday 24 May, 3:00 – 5:00 PM, with artist present

Opening hours: Thu – Sun, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM, and by appointment

Photo: Sleutelwerk, 2025, concrete and ceramics

From the Press Release
‘The Room that Builds Us’ is an exhibition about constructions that shape our physical and mental environment. Not only built structures such as houses and public spaces, but also invisible structures such as social norms, habits and expectations.
Maaike Kramer is fascinated by constructions that build our ‘home’, but also our ‘self’. Her work tells about this, about architectural spaces as a metaphor for spaces in your head. She questions these constructions and likes to start small with an idea, an incident, a plan that she draws. In a drawing, everything is still possible, unhindered by physical laws such as gravity. She calls these independent works ‘exploratory drawings’, some of which will also be in the exhibition. In this way, she investigates the space that we inhabit and uses all kinds of materials for this, searching for ways in which form and material together give a new meaning to a space. Material is therefore an active part of her story. The material undergoes a transformation that creates a story. In this way, the artist moves from an idea in her head, via drawings, to a sculptural form that has a right to exist and tells a story to the viewer.

For this new exhibition, Maaike executes these imaginary structures in concrete and ceramic, clay with different degrees of shrinkage, which means that the work that goes into the ceramic oven differs from what comes out after firing. These works thus tell the stories between the mental plan on the drawings and the physical architecture of the result. They are metaphors for our intentions for norms and values ​​and the social expressions that result from them, a transformation with intrinsic obstacles.

In 2022, Kramer filled Drawing Centre Diepenheim with her ‘Unbalancing Act’. A breathtaking exhibition that told the story of building and falling, of balancing in space and in your life. In the spring of 2024, Kramer’s works were presented in the group exhibition of nominees for the NN Award, which is awarded annually by the insurance company Nationale-Nederlanden. Authenticity and innovation are leading criteria for being nominated for this incentive prize. Kramer shows these aspects again in this exhibition with new works.