Beppe Kessler
Beppe Kessler
Beppe Kessler (1952, Amsterdam) is a visual artist, contemporary jewellery maker and
painter who currently lives and works in the Netherlands.
Beppe Kessler's canvas, not just the carrier of paint
Kessler graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 1979, with a degree in textile
art and industrial textile design. Whether it is wood, stone, paint, or linen, Kessler is known to stretch the material to its limits, constantly breaking and re-making to create
something new, all the while inventing her own techniques.
Kessler’s paintings are subtle but also harbour a silent power. The carrier of the paint,
the canvas, is equally as important as the paint itself. Kessler damages the canvas by chafing, piercing or shredding it before it is stretched, creating a signature ‘wavy’
shape. Her paintings are inextricably connected to her jewellery work, with both
emanating from and informing one another.
Beppe Kessler’s work has been well-received worldwide, and is part of the collections
of international museums such as the Schmuck Museum in Pforzheim, Germany,
Röhsska Museet in Göteborg, Sweden, Cooper-Hewitt in New York, US and Museum
of Fine Arts in Houston, US. Nationally, her work has been collected by and presented
in various renowned Dutch museums such as the Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk Museum
in Amsterdam, CODA Museum in Apeldoorn, the Textielmuseum in Tilburg and
Museum Arnhem. Kessler has twice received the prestigious Herbert Hofmann Preis
for her work in jewellery, in 1997 and 2009.
