My artistic practice is centered around a material-led inquiry into the political and emotional geography of adaptation and constraint. It deliberately engages with processes outside of my control, like fermentation, growth, and aging — as metaphors for how marginalized bodies negotiate boundaries they did not choose. This allows me to explore the complex negotiation between imposed authority and biological agency.
Kombucha scobys and fermentation are central beings in my work, whereas adaptation within boundaries is a crucial subject. Although I define their boundaries, the materials resist my full management by adapting and stretching in ways far beyond my control. My role is one of intentional surrender to observing and learning by doing; of following the material from which the work gets born, not submitting it to the constraints of a predefined idea. Evolution and experience of the living material outweighs the final object.
This embrace of serendipity drives also my other work: found drawings end up behind glass after an empathic fantasy exercise about its origin, its maker and what I can contribute from my imagination to this inner world on paper. Inner spaces, memories, and emotional fragments are playfully highlighted as were it a close collaboration between playmates. Also here the tension between the container and the contained are at stake.
COMING UP:
10.09 resonance of the past - Base Alpha gallert Antwerp BE
27.09 design fair - Nieuwe instituut Rotterdam NL
04.10 - 03.10 space-collection - coolcity2000 Leuven BE
27.10 - wonder festival - design regio kortijk
eyes wide shut...sheep lamps
a series of lamps made out of a material that i have been researching the past few years starting at het bos residency, this material is a byproduct of the brewing process of kombucha, some people call it a scoby, yet it is a pellicle that grows ontop of a scoby. this material exists out of thightly bound cellulose wich with the right technique of drying, stretching, treating and oiling makes a leather like product that give this beautifull sheen when i shine lught trough it, exposing its growth history and story.
A living composition developed at the Antwerp Queer Arts Residency, exploring what it means to find your voice and to hold space for others finding theirs.
Glass vessels filled with live kombucha cultures are monitored in real time. pH levels, sugar levels, and the quiet biology of fermentation are translated into sound. In tuning into these microbial voices, the installation becomes a shared ecology of care
le petit prinxe
BOOX.SPACE, Haarlem
"All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it." – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In Le Petit Prinxe, I show a visual ode to childhood's naive, unfiltered simpleness. Using reverse glass painting, a technique where marks are made blindly on the back of the surface, each piece emerges as a surprise: a conversation between the maker, the artist and its inner child, where memories materialize in delicate lines and simple bright forms.
These works are preservations: fragile feelings encased behind glass. Like Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince protecting his rose, i guard vanishing states of being, through a visual interplay of whats said and what still needs to be done.
I ask: How do we hold what slips away? When did we stop seeing stars as miracles?
residencys:
2025 Antwerp queer arts festival - De studio BE
2024 Bos academie - het bos BE
Solo shows:
2025 le petit prinxe - Boox.space Haarlem NL
2025 I shall rise and so will you - A night called quest - Destudio BE
group shows:
2026 wonder festival kortrijk - designregio kortrijk BE
2026 design fair - Nieuwe instituut NL
2026 resonance of the past - Base Alpha gallery BE
2026 coolcity3000 - Liege BE
2026 At its core - Biuro Buru at studio jaskólka Warsaw PLN
2026 biopony "beats of love" - extracity Antwerp BE
2026 Limburgse Biennale - Odda park NL
2026 PFA(RT)S " a landscape of exposure" - MHKA museum BE
2026 nature in dialogue - kunstfabriek NL
2026 days like this - albert van abbe huis NL
2025 the plot thickens - dingendienietverkopen BE
2025 XX in it together dead darlings - W139 NL
2025 to snail away - outhouse gallery UK
2025 kunstlijn Haarlem NL
2025 PAS foundation x duval BE
2025 the hub - arttelex BE
2025 Museumnacht - het bos BE
2025 Antwerp artweekend - off program BE
2024 closing - kieken centrale BE
2024 the first minutes - t-space BE
2024 the last minutes - t-space BE
2024 10 years het bos - antwerp art weekend BE
2023 geplande werken, royal academy of arts BE
2023 verkopen u dingen - dingendienietverkopen BE
projects:
2024 founded T-SPACE
2024 Window washers
2026 aesop artist campaign
schoolstraat 27, 2060 Antwerpen Belgium & jan nieuwenhuijzenstraat 25b, 2013zb Haarlem, the Netherlands
+32456420513
deltavmelle@gmail.com
https://ratelherbals.nl/