Wilma van Rees
Wilma van Rees (°1961) studies sculprute at the “Academie voor Schone Kunsten” in Antwerp; furniture in Antwerp and “Autonome Beeldende Kunst” at the AKV-St.Joost in Den Bosch. In the last institution, she came in to contact with glass and discovered the different possiblities of the material. She partipated in a workshop “glass engraving” by Wilhelm Vernim and engraving became her passion. Glass engraving is a medium that is close to her own language. The diamant wheel is as a pencil for the painter. The relief she creates lays between the two and three dimensional plane. It is an intriguing issue with a constant questioning if the work can be more dimensional of it should be only an illusion of space. Engraving offers the possibility to work in relief: close to the surface of the glass in transparent colors or in the depth of the opaque glass with a cameo technique.
For her graduation work she uses portrets as her inspiration. “ For me, the essence of humanity is that everybody has an equal value. By putting the portrets in a similar oval phrame, she want to stress the equality compared to the polarization of “they verus us”, as has become the standard in the media. The difference of eachother is places in the same format making it a unity. The fascination of the portret in glass forces me to make an endless series of images.”

Ingrid Vandekelder
Ingrid Vandekelder (°1958) trained as a Bibliothecaris-documentalist.  She is fascinated by the material glass for its resistance and material characteristics. “Glass is a material with lots of energy and this reflects my own intens character.”
“Het kabinet van Bwana Bob" is her graduation piece; The inspiration for the installation was her childhood in Belgisch-Congo where she collected different items with her father Bob.
“I was born in Kamina at the army basis of Katanga in 1958. My farther worked in the military. After the indepence of Congo in 1960, my father started to work for a private company in Kinshasa. There I spent 14 years in a school. In 1972, when president Mobutu started his policy of “Zairisering” and nationalizing many companies, we had to leave the country. My time in Zaire left a deep cultural impression on myself and the Belgians. From the 1900, the export of ivory, the White Gold, to Belgium stimulated the decorative arts with the use of ivory in objects of daily use as brushes, pianos, biljart balls but also in prestigious pieces. The ivory trade led to the near extinction of the elephant and even today they are treathened by the Chinese ivory marked.”
Het installation is based on items that were collected by her father and by her experiences in Afrika. The wooden structure of 2x2x2 meters is composed of cabinets that are filled with organic materials (e.g. stuffed animals), paper documents (e.g. maps) and glass sculptures and vases referring to elephants, crocodiles, leopards and minerals.