Eva Roovers’ images conjure expression and emotion from seemingly mundane objects. A Fine Art and Photography graduate, her still life images contain orderly and fanciful arrangements of these objects mixed with organic shapes, a process that has garnered much attention. “Selecting the objects is a precise job. I love to look at those objects with a fresh eye and see their formal characters above usability. The colour, texture and shape are my main selection criteria,” Roovers explains.

Although her studio is based in Amsterdam, Roovers has had international exhibition experience and acclaim in art-fairs and galleries in New York, Seoul, Berlin, and London, to name a few. Besides exhibition based work she likes to collaborate with set-designers and stylists to produce settings for advertising and campaigns of commercial brands in the future.

The blending of basic objects with the not-so-basic create unlikely couples that Roovers makes work. With what seems like an effortless, and natural, creative instinct she skilfully constructs her work in her studio, which she describes as “a platform for the theatre of the real”.

“Modelling with lights I create an ambience that becomes a bit surreal. My settings are like a shrine, but this time no religion is involved. The products are on show here, the mundane objects become actors in their own settings. Non excising connections become visible.”

The use of coloured light is also one of the main tools in Roovers’ creative construction, her pieces often incorporating a delicate balance of light. She describes her process as similar to that of abstracting painting, working with different colour filters, and lights and mixing them in a similar mode to that of mixing paint to create new colours.

This object based pallet of still life photography sees Roovers scouring secondhand stores and markets, she reveals that this is a very important aspect of her design process. “What I like is to give those abandoned objects a new life, where they can shine one more time before otherwise being forgotten. There is something interesting about the failure of those objects that don't have an owner anymore to serve purpose. Perhaps it's a love for the underdog, or maybe a silent dissent with our consumption society".

Roovers also says it is at this point the unlikely connection between unrelated objects are made, “sometimes at the market two unrelated objects seem to form a beautiful synergy. But mainly this game happens in the studio, when all references of their function are eliminated and the formal shapes are even more visible. The unintentional design from some items is just amazing.”

Although she may work like a “mad professor” when creating her installations and images, “I’m constantly adding and removing objects for as long as it takes until my perfect shape appears”, it’s undeniable that within the chaos of Eva Roovers’ work something unexpectedly harmonious, balanced and beautiful is ultimately created.

http://www.evaroovers.com

Words / Jamie-Maree Shipton