Rosalie Wammes

In her work, Rosalie Wammes wishes to slow down time, using her hands to embed memory and nostalgia in the materials she uses. With a background in theatre and music, she naturally moved to visual art. Working with clay, natural resin, worn metal, wood and sound she creates clusters of sculptures often installed together, taking from natural forms like trees intertwining. Wammes approaches each sculpture as a specific being, a character that is born during the making. Using ancient methods of making, evoking both the visceral and the timelessness. Like a family or an ecosystem, they act as abstract characters within a scene in which they can only exist with each other. Relating, supporting, or quietly resisting one another, always aware of the meaning the material carries.

Wammes’ sculptures often inspire a performance or a soundpiece. Like in the project There will be Time, a sculptural soundpiece, referring back to a childhood memory of her mum playing the low notes of the organ in church. Or the project The Forgotten Door in which she worked on memory and senses with people dealing with deafblindness. At the moment Wammes is creating a new body of work concerning the balancing act of care, on passing and holding on to each other..

Wammes works in London and Rotterdam and has shown her a.o. at South London Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Showroom MAMA and Het HEM. She is a recipient of the Gilbert Bayes Award and was selected for New Contemporaries 2022. Wammes obtained her Master in Fine Arts at Chelsea college of Arts (UAL) in London and holds a BA in performance (Toneelacademie Maastricht). She is also a member of the performance collective The Listening Project.