NELLEKE BELTJENS

Nelleke Beltjens, born in Roermond on November 18, 1974, is a Dutch artist. From 1992 to 1996, Beltjens attended the Academy of Visual Arts in Tilburg, the Netherlands. In 1998, she received her MA from Northern Illinois Univeristy, DeKalb, and in 2001 her MFA from the University of California at Davis. 

Typical for the sculptures of Beltjens is the preference for small and medium-sized formats and their presentation in multi-part floor installations. From 1997 to 1999, she created works in steel with clear allusions to architectonic forms. Later, in 2002 and 2003, she began working with combinations of material, such as wood combined with plaster. In the US, Jazz has had a big impact on her sculptures. This is reflected in the rhythmic form combinations of wood and plaster and may be detected in the increasingly improvisational working method where the forms are no longer designed in advance, but are developed spontaneously during the work process. Above all, Beltjens’ artistic goal is to express the creation of beauty and the desire to provide the viewer with a more intense perception of his own sensitivity.