Time, timeless, movement

The Balance Spring and the Grasshopper

For the exhibition Time, Timeless, Movement – initiated by Pulchri Studio, Stichting Haegsche Tijd and the Swiss Embassy – I created new work within my ongoing project Preserved. The exhibition celebrates the 350th anniversary of Christiaan Huygens' invention of the balance spring and explores the theme of time in all its versatility.

Where Huygens changed the concept of time into something precisely measurable and controllable with his groundbreaking invention, Preserved touches on the tension between the desire to stop time and the transience that eludes it. In Preserved, I work exclusively with artificial flowers, vases and props from thrift shops – objects with a past. With these, I create floral still lifes that refer to stylistic features and symbolism from different periods in art history. I temporarily build each still life in my studio and dismantle it again as soon as the image has been captured to my liking. In each composition, different time layers merge.

For the still lifes in this exhibition, I was inspired by two specific flower compositions by 17th-century painter Clara Peeters, a contemporary of Christiaan Huygens. Her flower arrangements full of symbolism inspired me to create two of my own still lifes with subtle references. In one work, a bumblebee appears, a symbol of diligence and nature; in the other, a grasshopper, as a sign of transience and the unexpected.

The exhibition will be opened on Saturday, July 19, 2025 at 5:00 PM by Jan van Zanen, Mayor of The Hague and Corinne Cicéron Bühler, the Swiss ambassador to the Netherlands. You are cordially invited!

Opening: 19 July 2025, 17:00 hours

Period: 19 July to 10 August 2025

Address: Lange Voorhout 15, 2514 EA Den Haag

Information: pulchri.nl & webshop Pulchri