Eileen Cohen Sussholz’s ceramic sculptures take the form of assemblages of objects that are individually cast in moulds that she makes from things that populates our cultural landscape. Whether plucked from the pedestal of art history or pilfered from the basement junk heap, her work acknowledges that we inhabit and engage with a world of objects. However, claiming that objects are never just objects, she delves beyond the manifest level of appearance to explore how these mundane inanimate forms often act as symbols that are unknowingly imbued with potency. As such her work can be seen as an attempt to uncover some of the fundamental concerns and values that underpin the meaning-laden rituals that are played out in the theatre of our daily lives. The artist furthermore ironically questions cultural clichés, contemporary notions of taste, as she does the status of the art object itself. The result is work in which the trivial and sublime are made inseparable as they become united through the materiality of clay and colour to be reborn in compositions of flashy, eccentric beauty.

Eileen Cohen Süssholz was born in South Africa but currently lives and works in Antwerp. Solo and duo exhibitions include Omnia Vanitas (2020) at the Erasmus House Museum in Brussels, Omnia Vanitas (2018) at the Pedrami Gallery and AR(M)OR 2018 at the Pedrami Gallery (2018). Group exhibitions include Cent artistes en libertés (2016) at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, the 2016 edition of Sporen in Ypres, The Colour of Water at the Antwerp Art Pavilion (2019) and I’m so happy to have you in my life at the Pedrami Gallery (2019). Her work has been selected for the 61st edition of the Faenza Prize that will take place in 2021 and Ceramic Art Andenne in 2022.