Beppe Kessler

Beppe Kessler (1952, Amsterdam) is a visual artist, contemporary jewelry maker and
painter who currently lives and works in the Netherlands. Kessler graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 1979, in the field of textile art and industrial textile design. She has always been attracted to drawing and painting, but also has a strong sensitivity to (everyday) materials, which is why she is nicknamed 'material girl'. Whether it is wood, stone, paint or linen, Kessler is known for stretching the material to its limits, constantly breaking it and making it into something new, and inventing her own techniques in the process.
Kessler's paintings are subtle but also harbor a quiet power. The carrier of the paint, the canvas, is just as important as the paint itself. Kessler damages the canvas by sanding, piercing or shredding before stretching it, creating a distinctive 'wavy' shape. Her paintings are inextricably linked to her jewelry work, which are related to and inform each other. Beppe Kessler's work has been very well received worldwide and is part of the collections of international museums such as the Schmuck Museum in Pforzheim, Germany, Röhsska Museet in Gothenburg Sweden, Cooper-Hewitt in New York USA, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston USA Her work has been collected and presented nationally in various renowned Dutch museums such as the Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, CODA Museum in Apeldoorn, the Textile Museum in Tilburg and Museum Arnhem.

Kessler has twice received the prestigious Herbert Hofmann Prize for her work in the field of jewelry, in 1997 and 2009.