Carolein Smit

A rat hung with pearls on a jewelery box, a Christ figure veiled by blood drops, a monkey with grapes in his arms. The work of ceramist Carolein Smit is both human and mysterious, natural as supernatural and often raw and confrontational. This oeuvre catalog appears at three exhibitions in London, Leipzig and the Drents Museum. The images of Smit have common ground with the classical vanitasthem - the presence of death makes it worth living here and now. On the outside she uses a visual language that touches curiosity cabinets: scientific, religious, anatomical. They show the deviant to confirm normal, classify the peculiar to maintain the scientific order. 'People tend towards mysticism and rituals at a time when everything can be found on the internet,' says Smit. "About that emotional short-circuit, that's what my images are about. About the tension between guilt and innocence, power and powerlessness, life and death. Exhibition: Drents Museum, Assen, The Netherlands (03.11.2018- 03.03.2019) / Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (19.03. - 30.09.2018) / Grassimuseum, Leipzig, Germany (02.06. - 30.09.2018)