Eveline van Duyl

Solo exhibition

Het Depot owns ten of Eveline's sculptures, including six torsos dating from 2007 to 2011. Several of these carved plaster torsos feature horsehair, perfume bottles, sugar confectionery, and synthetic nails. The skin of Van Duyl's sculptures, sometimes with humorous and sometimes elegant additions and embellishments, gives her work an attractive and unpretentious touch.

The exhibition will be officially opened on Sunday, February 1, 2026, at 2:30 PM by Johan Luijmes, artistic director of Het Depot. The opening will take place in the main building of Het Depot, Arboretumlaan 4 in Wageningen.

In exhibitions by Van Duyl in the last decade, a series of philosophers has been on display: realistically rendered heads of great thinkers. The skin of these heads is made from a wide variety of materials. Van Duyl makes an extensive study of the ideas of a number of philosophers and connects their philosophy with a thorough and adventurous use of materials. In an interview about these sculptures, she calls 'thinking' the source of her work. Also in connection with this series, Van Duyl is asked 'ad nauseam' about the what and why of her use of materials. It seems to her that because of this, in her view sometimes exaggerated, attention to the use of material, the viewer at a certain point literally does not get beyond the skin. Eight years ago, Van Duyl therefore decided to become, in her words, 'a real sculptor'. From that time on, she also started carving. A number of sculptures from this quest to create a sculpture from a single piece can be seen in the villa. In this case, working in wood is just one of the methods Eveline van Duyl has employed throughout her artistic career. After drawing extensively as a child, encouraged by her parents, it was a logical step to attend the Rietveld Academy.

Nothing at that point indicated she would work in three dimensions. She graduated from the graphic arts department. The choice of graphic arts had more to do with the connection she felt with the lecturers in that department than with a genuine desire to work in two dimensions. She was primarily seeking discourse. She sought the opportunity to sharpen her thinking. Her work, therefore, seems to be a periodically changing representation of that intellectual power. After graduating as a graphic artist, she discovered that spatial work ultimately suited her best. In her studio in Zeeland, where she lived and worked for a while, she created abstract steel sculptures after taking a welding course.

More information about Eveline van Duyl can be found in Fragment no. 27