Machteld Rullens gathers cardboard boxes, gently rubs them with color and resin, and stacks them, their flaps agape like unshut mouths or closed, hiding their interiors just so. Full of Emptiness, Rullens's debut artist book, presents over sixty of her humdrum wall-works alongside photographs of friends, family, curious objects, and far-off travels. Art and everyday life are documented with the same analogue camera, smudging the line therebetween—if there every was one.
Machteld Rullens (born 1988 in The Hague, Netherlands) works with sculptural elements that have a strong link with painting but are rarely applied with a brush. She uses everything that's available and that reflects her basic mood. That mood is a reflection of the time and of the world that, in spite of all its beauty, is overstimulated and possible even bored. Her wall objects, made from found cardboard boxes and epoxy resin, are full of emptiness. Rullens started painting on cardboard boxes when she ordered art supplies for the studio and noticed that the boxes could be tackled in a far more aggressive and impulsive way than for example a blanc canvas. She shapes and rearranges the cardboard boxes, something that was once fragile into something sturdy, relating to elements of play, composition, and architecture.
Text by Andrew Berardini
Published in November 2021
English edition
21 x 29,7 cm (softcover)
192 pages (ill.)
ISBN : 978-1-7345275-6-8
