User:FulcoZ~enwiki

Carina Claassens was born (09-08-1981) and raised in South Africa, where she spent the first years of her life living on a wild life nature reserve. From 2000 to 2002 she studied Fine and Applied Art at the Technikon University in Pretoria, with a main focus on Printmaking, Ceramics, Drawing and Art Theory.

After finishing her studies she moved to Mozambique when she was 21, and has only recently moved to The Netherlands (April 2005).

Her main subject has to do with celebrating Female Forms in all its aspects, with figurative artworks in ceramics, paintings, drawings and etchings. with figurative artworks in ceramics, paintings, drawings and etchings. Lately she has experimented more with Mix Media, Urban design and Video installations.

Her main subject was woman, now it has moved and grown to the Memory Series, where she documents her own memories. So as not to forget them, she uses rope to tie them down… to keep the memories from fluttering away into oblivion. Obsessively tying down her fears, secrets, lost moments, so that she may not forget: Who she is. As I quote her: “Yesterday made me”.

She gets her inspiration from events that happened with women in her circle of friends and in her family, and through living and travelling in a part of the world where voluptuous (female) figures are celebrated as the ultimate sign of fertility and of status.

Her techniques in Ceramics are mainly handmade sculptures, coloured with oxides, oven baked, and then glazed. In her paintings she mainly uses Acrylic and Oil on canvas, which shouts with spontaneous colour and vitality.

Her art style vaguely resembles Art Nouveau, Expressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Her artworks have been exhibited at several well-known institutions, ranging from the Poloqwane Art Museum and the Johannesburg Civic Centre in South Africa, to the Florence Biennale 2007, and many more.

Besides creating her own art, she is also very much involved in promoting other (sout-african) artists in The Netherlands with her foundation ZWAP! (www.zwap.eu). Currently she is also setting up an exhibition for the Afrovibes festival.

More information on Carina Claassens can be found on her homepage: www.Carinaclaassens.com