She is not an engineer, yet she loves machines. She is not a performance artist, yet she gives design a theatrical component. She is not a pyrotechnic, yet she loves playing with fire. Sarah van Gameren does not stage the end product, she makes the production process a spectacle. She makes her objects using various chemical and physical processes. They form while dripping, burning or melting. The results are often slightly melancholic, ephemeral products. Sometimes, in the end all that is left is a trace of their dramatic genesis.In BURN BURN BURN, for example, the burning of a line of flammable paint leaves behind a charred, extremely attractive pattern in a room. Like a chain reaction in matches placed on end very close together, a small flame gradually moves over the wall, chair back and table legs and draws a delicate, jet black decorative pattern in the room.
In the work entitled BIG DIPPER however, 24 chandeliers are produced in a 12-hour cycle on a production line consisting of vats of wax. The chandeliers, each with eight arms, are produced using the technique applied in candle-making; they are repeatedly dipped into molten wax until 12 layers have gradually built up. Apart from a thin wire frame to hang them up, the chandeliers consist only of wax and wick. Sarah van Gameren created both of these works while studying at the Royal College of Art in London in Summer 2007. Prior to that, the Dutch-born artist had studied at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. The performance artist does not want to be pigeonholed: "It is good to be somewhere you do not belong," she says. www.sarahvangameren.com