About Gemma

the fascination of beautiful things

Welcome!

Gemma Hermans is a ceramic artist living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and received her Bachelor Fine Art and Design (specialization ceramics) in 2016.

Gemma's work explores a world where animals, nature and human meet with a sense of anthropomorphism. Her studio reveals a realm where childhood dreams, fascinations and experiences form a surreal new world.

Her works are skillfully crafted in ceramics, the physical way of working with the material forms a physical bound to nature. Her work involves big ceramic sculptures that balance on the edge of the surreal and cartoonesque.

She is inspired by pop art, surrealism, the old classics, renaissance that form the mythological and fables, fairytale aspects in her work which gives a sense of time through reflection in daily life. Her art is often a translation of memories, experiences from the past.

Innocence, sensuality and guilt come forward through a view of death and childish imaginary. Looking at sculptures like a dying my little pony, a horse coming out of the ground and a naked woman on a tomb stone seem to form an important connection between past and present.

Artistic background

the start of HoP

Education

2016 - Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  • BFA: Fine Art and Design

2011 - St. Joost, s'Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands

  • Propedeuse: Fine Art

Exhibitions

2020

  • Opening Soon! 13 Feb - 14 Mar - Environmental Crisis Group expo, Gerald Moore Gallery, London, UK
2019
  • Expo Staatsgeheimen, 2de Nassau Ateliers Amsterdam, Netherlands

2017

  • Open Studio, Upper West Side, New York

2016

  • Gowanus Open Studio, Brooklyn, New York
  • Graduation Show, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2015

  • Wonder and Wander, Amsterdam's Old Church, The Netherlands
  • The Rite of Spring, Bunker0621, Amsterdamse Bos, The Netherlands
  • Ask The Oracle, a performance by the Ceramic department during the Uncut event: Art seen through the lens of theater, Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2014

  • Movimento Bronzi Dorati, Hero of Pergola, Pergola, Italy

2013

  • Meantime, in cooperation with Onomatopee and David Osbaldeston, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

2012

  • First Floor, 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands

Publications

2016
  • O!Clay, by Nico Stephou

2015

  • Wonder Wander, by Hannah Kindler

2013

  • Meantime, by Onomatopee

Residencies and other projects:

2014

  • Artist-in-residence project with The Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Pergola, Italy

2013

  • Artist-in-residence at atelier van Lieshout in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

  • Onomatopee in Eindhoven; A.C.T. Democ[k]racy. Cooperation curator/artist David Osbaldeston

2012-2013

  • Assistant at the European Keramiek Work Centre (EKWC, 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
    Artists & projects:
    • Douglas White - Songs of the Roustabouts
    • Tanja Smeets - Domestic Strangers
    • Bastienne Kramer - Home made
    • Anne Rochette