What is your specialty, what makes your work unique? Or place your artist's statement.

Moving from a small Limburg town to the city, Kirsti Coolen started to wonder what is happening to the way people relate to nature in the urban environment. This experience lead Coolen to create sculptural works that challenge our notion of nature and that emphasise the artificial character of nature within the urban landscape. To do this, Coolen engages in a process that is based on simulation: by recreating natural objects in a way that they, at first glance, appear entirely natural, Coolen forces us to reconsider our notions of nature and control. By allowing us to consider pieces of dead, synthetic, or artificial materials as living objects, her works refer to the lack of natural wilderness in our lives, while showing us how intriguing nature can be.

The artist’s attitude towards the disturbed relationship between urbanised society and the natural wilderness is highlighted in her drawings of trees and barks. Reconstructing the tree by using charcoal, Coolen remakes them with pieces of burned, suffocated wood. This creates a reversed dynamic. As we consider her drawings a representation of nature, Coolen actually makes the thought of living nature come alive by using the exact opposite, begging the question of what is really natural here and what is merely an inferior simulation.

Text by Menno Vuister

What are your ambitions? What do you want to be in five years?

I'll see what is next.
I have no idea where I will be in 5 years to be honest. I want to see the world and experiencing living abroad. Ideally find a place where I can truly feel like myself, while still living of doing what I love, which is crafting and making art.

What is the most important thing you have learned during your studies?

I have experienced so many downs at this academy, which have made me question and change my work completely, over and over again. It made me discover a lot of materials, and learn how to choose the right material with the story I want to tell.

I learned everyone's work is important. There are going to be people that do not like your work or have a different opinion, but there are also going to be people that love, and understand your work, relate to it. But whatever the case, they will question the work, their relation to it, and learn from it.

List of publications / exhibitions / prices / concerts / shows etc.

AN APPEELING FEELING 2020 | Klopgebouw in Utrecht