REBECCCA VAN DER MEULEN
About Fractured
While designing ‘Fractured’ I wanted to combine rigid materials in a way that could create more than just an illusion of movement. And as I had been originally experimenting with different ways to cast a living body, I tried to find a way to take the frozen pieces and retain their living energy. By separating the forms I cast into segments and suspending them on steel rods I was able to give my piece structured movement in multiple ways. Firstly, when the piece is touched, each fragment of the body shakes independently from the others, while staying synced within the same arrangement. The pieces quiver, creating an illusion the full form undulates. Additionally as each clay plate is mounted at differing distances from the base-plate on the wall, the overall shape of the sculpture itself changes as people walk around it. Each angle produces a slightly different silhouette.
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The fragmented nature of the piece along with the multiple mediums used also relates to the ways that every individual is immensely faceted, made up of countless pieces, each of them unique. This piece itself is comprised of four separate materials [steel, clay, poured plastic, and cement], with molds made from 4 different bodies. When fit together to create the whole, they mesh to create something new and the lines where one source ends and another begins blend to create an individual.
About Rebecca
Though Rebecca van der Meulen is currently wrapping up her four years as a Cinema & Photography major at Ithaca College, she has not limited her time to just be in the Park School of Communications. From her first year at IC she ventured outside her major, taking art, dance, and theatre classes whenever possible. But she didn’t stop there; she also went beyond the Ithaca campus. Her sophomore year she shot a documentary about the opioid epidemic in West Virginia, which went on to earn her and her team a nomination at the 49th Student Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. And in 2019 she spent both semesters abroad, going to London for her Junior spring and Vietnam the following fall.
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Rebecca tries to make art whenever and however she can, ranging from her current project making miniature books from paint swatches and acetate to a 5-foot-tall steel daisy that still stands in a garden at her high school. When making sculptures she mainly works with ceramics or metal, with an array of teapots, bowls, and vases filling her house. A few years ago she welded a life-size bouquet of steel roses that went on to be exhibited at the 30-Under-30 show in Stockbridge, MA that highlighted the work of 30 artists under 30 years old.