Banner image: ‘Light’ series
Photographer: Marja Sterck
“I have a lot of questions; my ceramic sculptures show me answers and at the same time also new questions.”
Movement Made Tangible
From her quiet studio nestled in the Dutch landscape, Cecil Kemperink gives form to motion, crafting works that shimmer with the essence of rhythm, repetition, and connection. Her ceramic sculptures, composed of countless interlinked clay rings, are not merely static objects but sensorial experiences—ones that beg to be seen, touched, and heard. Every loop is a note in a larger composition, evoking sound, breath, and balance. Rooted in a deep personal journey that bridges dance, textiles, fashion, and clay, her art is an expression of motion’s lasting imprint on matter. These are not just objects; they are performances in pause, sculptures waiting to move.
Kemperink’s evolution as an artist has never followed a linear path. Born in Almelo, The Netherlands in 1963, she emerged as a naturally curious and sensitive child with a vivid imagination and an eagerness to engage physically with the world around her. Whether it was through dance classes or art explorations, she was always creating, always investigating. Although her early dreams of becoming a professional dancer didn’t materialize through formal academies, they never left her. Instead, they shifted shape, finding new life in the dialogue between the human body and sculptural form. Her creative practice became a duet—her hands leading, the clay responding. The bond between performer and material is unmistakable in her sculptures, where each movement is preserved like a choreographic gesture.
The early intersection of movement and material laid the foundation for Kemperink’s artistic identity. While her journey briefly touched the world of fashion, it was within the field of visual arts that her multidisciplinary inclinations truly flourished. Encouraged to explore, she experimented with mediums like wood, bronze, textiles, and clay. It was clay, however, that became her lasting partner—a material both generous and demanding, sensitive to touch and resistant to control. The ceramic ring, recurring throughout her body of work, became more than a formal device. It symbolized unity, continuity, and shared tension. These interlocked shapes pulse with a sense of community, each element dependent on the other, echoing Kemperink’s belief in connection as the core of both art and life.
At work
Photographer: Lisette Schoo
‘Rhythm’ series
Photographer: Cecil Kemperink
Cecil Kemperink: The Poetry of Connection
Every sculpture by Cecil Kemperink carries the silent rhythm of a story—one that unfolds through touch, sound, and movement. Her ceramic structures, crafted from stoneware and assembled ring by ring, become living entities capable of shifting shape, emitting gentle sounds, and revealing new forms with every interaction. This quality of movement is not incidental but central to her philosophy. Drawing heavily from her dance background, Kemperink choreographs her materials with the intuition of a performer. When she interacts with her sculptures, the engagement resembles a pas de deux—artist and artwork moving in synchrony, one responding to the other. Viewers, too, are invited to join the dance, transforming passive observation into immersive experience.
Her works are built from hundreds of hand-formed clay circles, each individually connected to the next. This labor-intensive process is both meditative and demanding, requiring patience and precision. Many of her sculptures undergo multiple firings—some as many as fifteen—to achieve the desired tonal variations and structural integrity. Despite their fragility, these pieces exude strength. The paradox is intentional. Each ring’s vulnerability is offset by its role within the larger whole, an interdependence that reflects the nature of relationships, ecosystems, and communities. This metaphor is no mere abstraction. For Kemperink, the physical structure of her sculptures serves as a tactile embodiment of deeper truths: that individuality gains meaning through connection, and that transformation often begins with repetition.
One of her most significant works, Big Rhythm, epitomizes these ideas. This large-scale sculpture was conceived not just as an object but as a participant—designed to merge with the body of a performer, blurring the lines between sculpture and model. The fusion of form and flesh, motion and material, reinforces Kemperink’s commitment to interdisciplinary creation. Big Rhythm holds special meaning for her because it represents a full-circle moment: her lifelong dance of motion and material meeting in perfect synchrony. In this piece, the visual and the performative are not separate disciplines—they are integrated experiences, unified by rhythm and human presence.
‘Big Rhythm’
Photographer: Marloes Coppes
Material as Music, Silence as Space
Clay, for Cecil Kemperink, is not merely a material; it is a collaborator, a force with its own temperament and voice. She speaks of it with reverence, calling it “our earth”—a living substance that yields, resists, and transforms. It is within this intimate conversation between artist and medium that her distinctive sculptures are born. Using techniques inspired by textile craftsmanship, she weaves and connects each ring in a process that mirrors both sewing and choreography. This tactile dialogue is central to her practice. Clay’s pliability allows her to explore space, rhythm, and energy in ways that other mediums could not. The circular form—chosen for its symbolic weight and physical properties—functions as both her language and her rhythm. It repeats, resists finality, and echoes the cycles found in nature and life.
Her workspace reflects this philosophy of quiet engagement. Peace and solitude are not luxuries but necessities. Within the calm of her studio, often accompanied by classical or choral music, she finds the conditions necessary for creative focus. Distractions melt away when she’s immersed in the sculptural process. The kiln, her most essential tool, transforms fragile constructs into durable, resonant forms. Outside the studio, the logistical demands of her career—organizing exhibitions, updating websites, managing archives—can feel like an intrusion. But even then, the pull of the clay remains constant, offering a return path to creative flow. It is in these silent hours, surrounded by natural elements and her evolving sculptures, that Kemperink connects most deeply to her practice.
Nature is a profound influence on her work—not only in inspiration but also in process. The ebb and flow of tides, the shifting winds, the growth of organic forms—all these phenomena inform how her sculptures behave and appear. Her minimal color palette reflects this connection to the natural world, emphasizing earthy tones and subtle gradients. These aesthetic decisions are not meant to distract but to ground. They allow viewers to focus on form, sound, and interaction without the interference of visual excess. In this way, her sculptures become meditations on sensory presence—each one inviting a deeper awareness of movement, of self, and of space.
‘To be continued’
Photographer: Marja Sterck
Cecil Kemperink: Sculpting the Future of Interdisciplinary Art
Driven by curiosity and creative hunger, Cecil Kemperink continues to explore new territories in her artistic practice. While her sculptures already blur boundaries between visual art, sound, and performance, she envisions even more expansive collaborations. One dream project in particular—a large-scale interdisciplinary work combining dance, choreography, music, and fashion—represents the next frontier of her ambitions. She imagines a fusion of kinetic sculpture with live performance, where bodies move in dialogue with ceramic forms, soundscapes emerge from shifting clay structures, and textiles influence spatial composition. With unlimited creative freedom, this vision could fully unify the disciplines that have shaped her life: the expressiveness of dance, the materiality of clay, and the sensory richness of fashion and sound.
Her work is not isolated in concept or geography. Exhibiting regularly both within The Netherlands and internationally, Kemperink’s art has found resonance in museums, galleries, and private collections across continents. Her pieces have been shown in Geneva, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Italy, and France, as well as in significant Dutch institutions like the CODA Museum and Museum De Tiendschuur. Prestigious collections—including those of the Korea Ceramic Foundation and the Museum Ariana in Geneva—hold her sculptures, affirming the global relevance of her vision. Beyond exhibitions, she expands her reach through performances, videos, and even catwalk shows, emphasizing that her work is meant to move—literally and metaphorically.
Kemperink’s sculptures do more than occupy space; they animate it. With each shift in form and each soft rustle of clay against clay, they pose questions about connection, time, and the boundaries between disciplines. For her, contradictions—such as fragility and strength, form and formlessness, sculpture and performance—aren’t problems to resolve but qualities to embrace. When she plays with her sculptures, she enters a space where these dichotomies dissolve. The questions themselves become irrelevant, eclipsed by the joy of experience and the purity of movement. Through her hands, the circle is no longer just a shape. It is a philosophy, a motion, a breath.
