BIO
Annelies Slabbynck was born in 1968 in Belgium. At the age of 17 she started with art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Aalst, Belgium where she studied Ornamental Arts and Design. Later she continued her art studies at the Higher Institute for Visual Arts, Saint-Lucas in Ghent, Belgium, with a major in ceramics. Since the last decade she lives and works in Shanghai, China. Annelies Slabbynck brings sculptural works that leaves behind a deep impression in people’s minds. Her work characterizes itself by a simple yet successful visual language, wherein she expresses universal themes such as life and death, growth and transformation processes. Slabbynck brings many forms of physicality, although sometimes in a quite fragmented and abstracted manner. She includes clay and textiles in an original and experimental way, making good use of the rich symbolic value of these materials. Her work also triggers one’s personal interaction with everyday objects. It makes us reflect on concepts such as sustainability and craftsmanship and ritual character of objects. She seeks a return to older utensils from China (she lives in Shanghai) and the Western popular culture, two cultures that she knows how to bring in synthesis in an interesting manner. [Isabelle De Baets, <H> ART (Belgian Art Magazine), 12.02.2009]