Ada Van Hoorebeke´s practice investigates and expands crafts related techniques such as ceramics, and textile batik that are based on natural dye.
Most recently the artist developed a keen interest in early 20th centry textiles from the North coast of Java which combine european fairy tale characters and flowers with indochinese and arabic patterns. “My sculptures and installations are inspired by domestic industries and the wish to reconstruct my own versions with their own scale, logics, mobility and aesthetics.
Some of my sculptures can be used in the production of dyes trough fermentation methods, with urine and indigo. These challenging and time consuming working processes spontaneously develop a fetish-like quality, which can be physically shared with the audience.
In my work I draw attention to the non-permanent characteristics of textile as a material, temporary and adjustable. As we wish to be increasingly mobile, and art is once more interwoven with a way of living, I think textile is particularly relevant. Cloth can take different shapes. It can always be shown in new configurations. I apply the same logic to the aspects of textile history I refer to. In my work I can adjust both shape and conceptual focus to what I find relevant to be shown or to be covered for a specific moment and place.”
Recent solo shows and curatorial projects include: ‘Gedankengang’ Grimmuseum at Art Berlin Contemporary, ‘Black is the Color of Decay’ BankART Yokohama (duo show), ‘In Practice’ Breda ́s Museum, ‘Spirits and Landscapes’ WIELS Brussels, ‘The Shop Floor’ Grimmuseum Berlin; ‘Tongues of Fire’ (duo show), DMW Art Space, Antwerp. Recent group shows: ‘Clay Case’, Gallerie Anne de Villepoix Paris; ‘Feelings of my Thatched Hut’ Grimmuseum Berlin; ‘Mind Fabric’, Institut de Carton, Brussels, ‘Now Age’, Garage, Rotterdam, ‘Die Symmetrie des Wassers’, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna.
