De-polariszumab 1,2 and 3

25cm x 60cm (self-healing concrete, ceramics and recycled aggregates)

De-polariszumab is a fictitious drug name for anti-polarisation.

These works mirror the polarisation now embodied and fostered in contemporary life. They speak of an antidote, however, they are heavy, oversized and difficult pills to swallow.

De-polariszumab 1 is a pill split into two halves: black and white, with different copper cables, it is a metaphor for differing ideological positions, facilitated by its own bespoke cabling network. Each half looks beautiful, is self-contained, and feels right. Put together as one,they feel irreconcilable, poles apart.

De-polariszumab 2 demonstrates ideas or ideological positions as a spectrum, because everything can be regarded as a spectrum. Black ceramics sitting in a white concrete matrix grades to white ceramics embedded in a black concrete matrix. In this transition, there is the centre, which passes through the grey spectrum, where nothing is black and white. To realise we live in spectrums is to see the world as one, not as different.

De-polariszumab 3 This final piece introduces colour. Black and white on the extremities and colour towards the middle. This pill’s medicine is to push the idea that the middle ground is where life is colourful. Compromise is colourful because it requires seeing beyond ourselves.

De-polarisation is difficult because it requires taking all these pills.

Synthetic Source Code

55cm x 35cm approx (red stoneware)

ASC11 is an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. By representing each ASCII character as a corresponding binary code, this allows computers to store and manipulate text in a binary format, which is the only format that digital devices can directly work with.

It was used in punch cards, one of the first methods to store information digitally. For me, it marks the transition from the analogue to the digital.

These works present the words natural and synthetic in analogue and binary form with the ASC11 code. They also present the phrase Synthetic Source Code as analogue and binary. The analogue is represented by the heavily textured blocks that imbue it with a context of its making. The binary blocks have a reduced texture, that eludes to their de-contextualisation or re-contextualisation. Can we really live in a world where so much information is stripped of context, and then re-packaged and re-contextualised? In some cases, yes, absolutely, it is an imperative. In other cases, no. There seems to be no agreement upon which is best fort each scenario.

Target DNA 1,2 and 3

1m x 1.3m x 6cm (stoneware)

This body of work came to me when on the same day I was looking through Jasper John’s target series and heard a ridiculous quote that was doing the rounds on social media, about how the West’s fundamental weakness was its empathy.

I thought it would be intriguing to construct a piece that targeted the biological pathways/genes that are supposedly involved in fostering and feeling empathy. The assertion being that fostering empathy feels under threat, and it often feels that some technology in use today is a co-conspirator.

Target DNA is also a term in the scientific community that describes an area of genetic focus, for medical research and medicine. Target in this sense has a dual meaning: it is the area we focus on for enquiry and conversely, and perhaps perversely, an assault on this very same area. The heavily textured blocks denote this tumultuous target area, within the otherwise more natural geometry of our genetic landscape.

The DNA Room at Palace Huis ten Bosch is an art installation that comprises of nearly 60,000 handmade ceramic blocks that depict the DNA of the King and Queen and future Queen of The Netherlands. Additionally, it portrays a global citizen, a past portrait and a future portrait, where areas of the genome have been highlighted that provide engaging metaphors of our past and our future survival. It embraces the notion of inclusivity and diversity as the best means of our future survival. The installation documents small sequences of the royal couple’s DNA, but also proposes the wider significance of context when understanding, the self, evolution, institutions and the environment. Ultimately, the artwork is a request that we understand everything we do, and everything we are, as fundementally and inextricably interdependent. It is a request for a less anthropocentric outlook.

This series comprises 4 concrete panels, each 3m x 1.75m. Using handmade ceramic, metal aggregates and self-healing concrete.

“Jacob van der Beugel has recreated the battlefield of life, death and struggle of the human cell in concrete and clay…” Koen Kleijn, De Groene Amsterdammer.

This series wrestles with the notion of atrophy in a material that is synonymous with permanence. It explores notions of change and mutation at a cellular microscopic level but also human change at a macro environmental level.

For sales enquiries please contact Museum Beelden aan Zee: vanproosdij@sculptuurinstituut.nl or New Art Centre: jessica@sculpture.uk.com

With thanks to Henk Jonkers from TU Delft for allowing usage of his pioneering self-healing concrete and his expertise.

Photo credit Gerrit Schreurs

Inspired by the traditional blue and white palette of delftware, this series explores our individual disposition towards blue and notions of blue; the colour, the feeling of melancholy, the genetics of anxiety and one’s unique personal history.

For sales enquiries please contact New Art Centre: jessica@sculpture.uk.com

Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, UK, in association with Joanna Bird

Stoneware Clay and Hand-Mirrored Glass

Photography by Sylvain Deleu and Andrew Farrar

The North Sketch Sequence was conceived as an all encompassing ceramic experience. The DNA of The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and their son and daughter-in-law, Lord and Lady Burlington, has been translated into 650 large ceramic panels. Protruding ceramic blocks, organised into four columns, G A T C, represent the mitochondrial DNA of all four sitters. A fifth central portrait has been created that depicts ‘Everyman’. This contains miniature mirrors that reflect the faces of the viewing public, emphasising the importance of visitors to Chatsworth in a more democratic era.

The installation is an exploration of human identity, inheritance and ultimately an illustration of the human condition. The genetic understanding of oneself is tackled through themes of communality and uniqueness. Historically, inheritance at Chatsworth has been associated through the paternal line. Mitochondrial DNA is passed on through the maternal line, thus providing an interesting counterpoint, especially in light of contemporary succession laws.

The work consists of multifarious layers of meaning, suggesting the multi dimensional nature of someone’s identity. Despite all these attempts to capture a sitter’s personality there are elements of impenetrability: DNA blocks that are flush, their meaning hiding behind the surface; glazed blocks that ethereally capture other illusive traits of the sitter’s personality, yet are reluctant to divulge their significance. As a portrait the work renders human identity as layers of unfathomable complexity.

This series comprises 4 concrete columns, each 1m x 25cm. Using handmade ceramic, metal aggregates and self-healing concrete.

“Jacob van der Beugel has recreated the battlefield of life, death and struggle of the human cell in concrete and clay..” Koen Kleijn, De Groene Amsterdammer.

This series wrestles with the notion of atrophy in a material that is synonymous with permanence. It explores notions of change and mutation at a cellular microscopic level but also human change at a macro environmental level.

For sales enquiries please contact Beelden aan Zee vanproosdij@sculptuurinstituut.nl or New Art Centre jessica@sculpture.uk.com

With thanks to Henk Jonkers from TU Delft for allowing usage of his pioneering self-healing concrete and his expertise.

Photo credit Gerrit Schreurs

The human body and mind are the vessels that hold memories and store it in a unique way, individual to all. It carries the memory from the past through to the future. The more we bisect and analyse what a memory is the further we stray from being able to recreate it, we feel this intuitively. Depicted here are genes that enable memory formation and serves as a materialistic perspective. The paradox of losing the memory the more we analyse it is represented by the colour gradation to white. This also forms a beautiful silhouette that is a metaphor for the human body. This work explores the paradox of memory and its physical storage.

Collection of the University of Cambridge

Concrete, self-healing concrete, mixed aggregate and handmade ceramic elements.

Photography courtesy of Paul Riddle Photography.

‘These beautiful and corporeal concrete panels are architectural on one hand and flesh-like on the other. The overall impression of the artwork is that of an abstracted tissue bank containing all the endeavours past, present and future of the building.’ Jacob van der Beugel

August 2018 saw the completion of a major art commission for the University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry. The commission is for the façade of the new Chemistry of Health building which will house researchers working to understand and combat disorders including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

The work which adjoins the main entrance is a 10-metre long, 2.5-metre high series of 240 highly detailed, handmade, self-healing concrete aggregate panels that depict the progression of neurodegenerative illness. Developed in consultation with scientists who will work in the building and RH Partnership Architects it creates a dynamic and poignant focus to the façade of the building and relates to its important research role.

This project would not have been possible without the generous support of Henk Jonkers of TU Delft.

​Concrete change is about depicting change in a material synonymous with permanence and endurance. It speaks of our instinct to survive and persist, whilst subject to inevitable dilapidation. The artwork portrays slow insidious change and rapid decay. It can easily be regarded as 13 different columns that represent individual cellular changes, however, I intend for the work to be a deeper rumination upon the idea of changing scientific knowledge and what it might mean to survive. The materiality of the work induces a corporeal response to notions of change.

Private Collection

Stoneware Clay and Cut Books

Photography courtesy of New Art Centre.

This work explores society’s relationship with data and abstracted information, in particular genetic data. How should we as a society or individual read our genetic profiles and how does it help us in understanding ourselves?

Books have been rendered obsolete, having been sawn in two. The story they told, now half told, is indecipherable. We cannot read our identity from our DNA like a story. The other half is missing. These installations refer to the necessary editing processes in order to attain knowledge and information from certain systems.

Torn ceramics have been inserted into this genetic system that record the history of human touch and its own making upon its surface. Their inclusion between the pages represent the lost story, symbolic of our own history and fashioning. They serve as a rehumanising memento and remind us that abstract data is derived from us.

Concrete, Liquid Rust, Steel and Recycled Aggregate

These works are the result of a collaboration with The ECSG, the Epidemiology Cancer Statistics Group based at York University. This group looks into the complexities of analysing haematological malignancies, such as leukaemia and lymphomas.

The work wishes to highlight that while socio-demographics are not a determining factor in occurrence of blood cancers, it does play a role in the outcome and survival rate of the more chronic conditions. This fact, similar in many other chronic conditions, needs to be highlighted and ultimately rectified.

The ubiquitous material of concrete has been used, because concrete can suffer from its own form of cancer. When the concrete surface starts to degrade it increases in porosity, allowing water to penetrate and compromise the integrity of the steel reinforcement bars. When this happens quite often rust can be seen leaching from the concrete.

The pieces have a refined polished texture gradating to a rough and crude surface. This symbolises the indexes used for socio-demographics. The more polished and refined the concrete environment, the more the impact of the obstacles can be softened. This for me equates to the perennial fact that in a socially affluent area the obstacles that make others falter are rendered less harmful.

I have come to learn that the concerns, honest techniques and data depictions of these brilliant researchers are something to aspire to as an artist. They methodically unearth and render an uncompromising story of the human condition; I only hope my work can contribute to the telling of it.

Private Collection

Stoneware Clay

This work explores the emerging field of Epigenetics. Colours, textures and depth vary in an attempt to convey the metamorphic nature of ourselves and how our genes respond to our environment. We are in constant flux and our notion of the self is predicated on our surrounding context. We all respond to context in different ways.

What makes these same stretches of DNA sequence more or less colourful, protruding and expressed? What are the contributing external factors? We are more interdependent with our environment in a more profound way then we first realised. This is something that should be whole-heartedly embraced and understood.

Ceramics has a very important part to play in expressing this idea. It is very prone to succumbing to touch and capable of freezing human gestures. This restores a vital humanity to a scientific field that is often overwhelmed by the enormous quantity of data required to extrapolate conclusions. Just as the clay is influenced through an external pressure by the artist, the environment exerts its influence on our chemical composition.

Private Collection

Stoneware Clay

An expansion on the Dutch 17th century vanitas theme, this work explores the differences of success and failure, intemperance and the meagre, through the use of colour, form and texture. The use of viticultural vessels and colour are metaphors for the development of the grape, and more generally one’s fortune or fate. What occurs to the grape from its budding to its bottling, i.e its environmental circumstances, chemical additions, terroir or inherited faxtors and maturing process, is similar to the development of a person.

Artist’s Collection

Stoneware Clay

A work that captures the song and celebration of the atmospheric church choir.

Stoneware Clay

Photography by Sylvain Deleu

Memento Mori is a still-life that tackles the themes of excess and mortality. The piece is a contemporary response to the 17th century Dutch still-life. The installation comprises of close to two hundred ceramic vessels and consists of a spectrum of alcoholic containers, including imitation plastic cider bottles, crunched beer cans and traditional chianti bottles-with red marks to the reverse of the pieces. The excess of empty consumption is a vanitas, whilst the red flecking serves as the memento mori.