BizArt - Charlotte

Charlotte van den Akker

Charlotte van den Akker was born in the Netherlands, but she has been living in Avanos, a small town in Cappadocia, Turkey, since 2003.

As a sculptress, she brings in her own life into her work and at the same time explores the human spiritual component with all its fragility; she develops her own basic artistic language, creating formal harmonious compositions which vary between abstract and figurative art.

The initial intuition which is the source of each of her works is not the urge to represent what she has observed in life, but rather to project her innermost being; it is by reaching the emotions which appear from inside her – love, loneliness, nostalgia, memories, impulses – that the artist puts to good effect her talent of endowing the sculptures with an irresistible capacity for communication. Through their elegance and fine balance, van den Akker’s creations capture the gaze of the onlooker: fascinated and bewitched, one relates to them, feeling a strong urge to reflect, to turn in on oneself, to feed one’s soul with self-awareness.

Fascinated by the use of many different materials, particularly stone, but also metal, wood and ceramics, van den Akker devises shapes, relating them to a dreamlike, abstract dimension where everything is formed and condensed into carefully thought out structures which offer compositions with free contours and are intensely charged with vital energy. In these, we discover with surprise that the forms always seem to evolve from one work into another, as if every piece created were not complete in itself but rather gives way to the creation of another, following in a natural flow of constant evolution, of perpetual transformation of the material. The search, on this fascinating path, leads to graceful sculptures such as ’Introspection’ and ’Consolation’, which are just two examples of the artist’s ability to infuse her soul into her working material, bringing it to life in beautiful, pure forms.

The artist uses her richly inventive creative style in this, her search for expression which she projects inwards rather than towards a reproduction of reality, working her material to achieve a formal concept and concrete expression that go beyond mere naturalistic representation.

The works of Charlotte van den Akker are an irresistible invitation to enter her inner world formed of emotions, of shapes and volumes, as well as of materials. They are so full of meaning, poetry and love for life and the world, and are made almost human by the strong, passionate spirit that inspires her; they become tangible signs of an inner force that we must all seek out, certain of being able to discover it, even in ourselves.

 By Paola Trevisan, curator