WILLEMSTAD – The Curaçaosch Museum will open a new solo exhibition by artist Evelien Sipkes on May 5, presenting a deeply personal body of work centered on memory, family history and resilience.
Titled De Tuinfluiter (“The Garden Warbler”), the exhibition brings together a layered collection of works in which material, imagination and personal history intersect. According to the museum, the exhibition explores themes of loss, survival, femininity and resilience through objects and stories rooted in Sipkes’ family past.
Sipkes, born in Amsterdam in 1955, spent part of her childhood in Curaçao before studying at the Utrecht School of the Arts. She returned to the island in 1996 and has lived and worked there ever since, developing a broad artistic practice that includes ceramics, jewelry and mixed media.
Her work is known for its sensitivity to materials and detail, often drawing inspiration from natural forms. Over the years, she has worked with a wide range of materials including porcelain, linen, glass, gold leaf and silver.
The inspiration for De Tuinfluiter emerged from boxes of old family letters, photographs and documents belonging to her grandparents. Among them was the final letter from her grandfather during the World War II. At the heart of the exhibition is the story of her grandmother, who helped shelter people in hiding during the war and contributed to underground resistance newspapers.
Everyday objects from her grandmother’s home reappear in the exhibition in ceramic form, transformed into symbolic carriers of memory and meaning.
For the Curaçaosch Museum, the exhibition also marks an important continuation of Sipkes’ artistic relationship with the institution. She previously participated in the museum’s 2020 exhibition Ekstremo, Pa Koroná e Obra, presented during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she showcased paintings and ceramics inspired by the intimacy and confinement of lockdown life.
The new exhibition is curated by Sharelly Emanuelson and was made possible with support from the Cultuurfonds Caribisch Gebied.
The official opening of De Tuinfluiter will take place on Tuesday, May 5, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Curaçaosch Museum. The exhibition will remain on display through October 3.