Sense of touch has always been a major theme in Simone van Bakel’s work. To generally plain designs for functional ceramics, she added deviant elements, materials and details. Her work carried reliefs, notches or specific glazing applications, which only revealed themselves by touch or a certain light fall. Exemplary of this way of working are the bowls covered in sentences in Braille.
Functionality however is no longer the standard, and with her recent sculptures she examines other elements, distinctive by their simple, organic design. The human body is pivotal in objects that resemble intestines, auricles and futuristic prostheses. In addition to a large diversity of glazing applications, Van Bakel has in recent years lavished on her sculptures a range of unorthodox skins. Reflecting metallic material, high-gloss automotive paint, and textural flocked skin have estranged her ceramic sculptures that are made of stone or porcelain. By re-contextualising the ordinary, Van Bakel adds to her work a different way of observation or experience. This is expressed in eternally solidified shapes, each with its own truth and coming from an almost anatomical naturalness.
