FICHEROUX
‘It is all about nothing, getting lost in nothing’
He felt that death was what made life worth living.
He looked for silence; he needed quietness to evolve both as a person and as an artist.
He explored his fascination with mortality, transience and eroticism in his work.
He was an aesthete but in a constant fight against it, afraid to damage the soul of his artwork.
Mathieu Ficheroux (Rotterdam, 1922-2003) was a painter, illustrator and sculptor working from the early 1960’s until the end of the 20th century.
He graduated cum laude from what is now the Willem de Kooning Academy and taught fashion photography there for several years before deciding to become an independent artist.
Ficheroux’ paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the Netherlands and internationally, including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, The World Exhibition, Osaka, the Kunsthal, Rotterdam and Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, which also has several of Ficheroux’ works in its permanent collection.
A large retrospective exhibition of Ficheroux’ work was held at the Chabot Museum in 2008. His public sculptures and monuments notably Portrait of Multatuli (1973), the Louis Davids Memorial (1983) and the Forgotten Bombardment (1993) continue to be part of Rotterdam’s urban landscape.
SCHNEIJDERBERG
‘To live is to be imperfect’
She had her challenges.
She tried to understand her life and herself as a person, to bring sincere light in the darkness.
She feels the urge to purify herself; it makes her investigate and experiment with her deepest feelings, fears, desires and pain.
She listens to her intuition; what calls to be created, she creates, even if it terrifies her.
She sees the shortcomings of an ego-oriented mind and how this holds us back from experiencing true freedom, openness and emotions.
That is why her work is about breaking one’s ego, while at the same time offering a healing touch for the hurt soul, waiting to be seen and freed.
Roos Schneijderberg (Rotterdam, 1977) previously worked as a brand strategist and trend-forecaster. Among other things, she worked for the Netherlands-based international advertising agency KesselsKramer. Her background in branding paved the way for her conceptual thinking and the pursuit of a strategic core message in each of her creations.
