Esmée

Bruins

Esmée Bruins


Artist Statement
When I was younger, I used to dream about the trees around the pond, the ride to school, and my little brother falling off the bicycle, breaking his hand. The road was surrounded by low bushes, boxwood to be more precise. I remember him trying to touch the bushes with his feet as he was on the back of my mother's bicycle. His foot got caught in the branches and he fell off a bicycle.

Using found objects or rather tracks of interaction is a starting point in my practice. These documents of interaction are situated in textiles, plaster, tin, wood, and images. Textures that are rather familiar to my childhood. All of our memories are fragmented. We don’t truly recall the full experience of these moments but we link each fragment to another fragment to create a cohering memory. It’s only after critically looking at our full memories and noticing these (often visual) fragments that we’re able to truly look at the fragments by themselves. Each work explores a different memory, but when formed a whole depicts the sense of growing up. Memories of a leakage, painting the house white, and a rabbit that died.



Information

Education
MA Fine Art - Piet Zwart Institute / 2023-2025

Bachelor of design with honours (Photography) - University of the Arts Utrecht / 2017-2021

Media Foundation + University of the Arts Utrecht / 2016-2017

Exhibitions
Heating systems - Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam / 2024
Op de manier waarop - De Bouwput, Amsterdam / 2024
Unseen - Westergas, Amsterdam / 2024
Kloof United - Kunsthal Kloof, Utrecht / 2024
Notes on image-making - Galerie Pouloeuff, Naarden / 2024 
   /duo-show with Noah van de Wetering
Index - Kunsthal Kloof, Utrecht / 2023
Springboard Art Fair - Werkspoorkathedraal, Utrecht / 2023
Two windows opening inwards (solo) - Projectspace Lokaal, Utrecht / 2023
Nothing seemed out of place - Kunsthal Kloof, Utrecht / 2022
This Art Fair - De Komhouthal, Amsterdam / 2022
Binnenstebuiten - De Nieuwkomers, Chaam / 2022
Unseen Bookfair, Amsterdam / 2022
Re: Re: Re: - Academie Galerie, Utrecht / 2021
Keep an eye stipend - Fotodok, Utrecht / 2021
Exposure - Fotodok, Utrecht / 2021
Unseen Bookfair, Amsterdam / 2021
Beeldbrug - Faam, Utrecht / 2020
In between us - Academie Galerie, Utrecht / 2019
Echt_def_2 - Academie Galerie, Utrecht / 2019

Experience & Nominations
Lecturer Media Foundation - University of the Arts Utrecht / 2021-2023
Assistant Sara Bjarland Deposits, Galleria Sculptor / 2021-2022
Internship Thomas Kuijpers / 2020
Internship Sara Bjarland / 2020

Keep an eye stipend, shortlisted / 2021
Blurring the lines, nominee / 2021

Publications
Mapping artifacts: unidentified evidence, self-published, edition of 50 / 2021

Commissions
Repeatedly elongating the breath of a memory, commissioned by Sound and Vision Institute, edition of 40 / 2023