FIGURATIVE WORK | Martine Jansen . Contemporary art.

THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL FORT BREENDONK

A Place Of Remembrance

Belgium has not been spared the horror of Nazism and its concentration camps.

The fortress of Breendonk is a moving and striking example. It is one of the best conserved camps in Europe.

Between September 1940 and September 1944, around 3500 prisoners passed through Breendonk. 301 didn’t survive the camp.

We installed one of my artworks in the fortress of Breendonk. I wanted to pay tribute to the 301 prisoners who died at Fort Breendonk by hardship, execution or suspension.

301 hands are brought together as a memorial.

In 2000 Martine started designing artists-dolls in porcelain under the name MJBdolls, with which she acquired big international notoriety. Many of these dolls are spread over collections worldwide.

From 2012 she continued her experience with porcelain in figurative, visual work. At first the link to the dolls was still clearly tangible, with a direct figurative approach.

During the last years, her works incorporated more and more abstract stylistic elements, through which her sculptures acquired a more sensible figuration, but nevertheless became more autonomous objects.

SENSIBLE FIGURATION

Making porcelain dolls is a lenghty process that demands lots of patience. Each part of the doll is modelled separately, and of each piece a separate plaster mold is made in which then the porcelain is poured. These castings, at that point still very fragile, are then sanded and edited with close precision, after which they are baked at 1230°C.

The face, the eyes and skin are painted in five layers and imprinted at 700°C. As soon as all parts are ready, they are mounted on a (most often) fabric body and ecquipped with clothing of own design.