Natasja van der Meer
Mixed media
30x30x30 cm

Natasja van der Meer depicts the world through the eyes of children by playfully depicting everyday objects. Here, she uses beads to illustrate pixels in three-dimensional space to create a hanging sculpture. Clear and simplistic, ‘Blow’ depicts a pipe and a heart-shaped smoke it spreads, all in dark, monochromatic tones. In this work, van der Meer questions how symbols associated with adulthood can be romanticized and idealized by a child. The work is therefore a product of a child’s imagination and ability to find meaning in dull, everyday objects. Interestingly, by depicting the pipe, she references the ‘This is Not a Pipe’ painting by a famous surrealist artist Rene Magritte. Indeed, just the same way Magritte plays with the meaning of a pipe, van der Meer plays with its interpretation.