H8 COACHING team
Activities
HS8 coaches: Beppe Kessler, Iris Bodemer, and Katharina Dettar.
The HS8 group is structured into three smaller groups, each with a dedicated coach who works closely with their 3 to 4 artists.
The feedback sessions are conducted between August and October 2023. Each of the HS8 artists can watch the other feedback sessions (but not actively participate in them). This creates a collaborative environment where the HS8 artists share ideas, discuss them further, and learn from each other’s presentations. With those monthly sessions, the HS8 artists can act on feedback in the development of a body of work for their mid-project exhibition at Depot Artspace, Auckland in November.
Coach of Grace Yu Piper, Louise Hill, Nellie Peoples
Beppe Kessler
Beppe Kessler (1952, Amsterdam) is a contemporary jewellery maker and painter who lives and works in the Netherlands. Kessler graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 1979, with a degree in textile art and industrial textile design.
‘My inspiration lies in huge concepts you cannot describe into words. Like time, nothing, the violence of the elements. Or in small things I encounter, thoughts that amaze me, making me realize that vulnerability gives life to things’.
‘Little treasures’, that is how she describes her jewellery; miniature sculptures composed of age-old and contemporary, often worthless materials, brazenly combined and not bound to the traditions of jewellery making. They express her feelings and thoughts about life. They invite touching and they tell a story, summarized in titles justifying their existence.
Her paintings are subtle but they possess a silent power. For Kessler, the carrier of the paint, the canvas, is equally as important as the paint itself.
Whether it is wood, stone, paint, or linen, Kessler stretches her material to their limits, constantly breaking and re-making to create something new, while also inventing her own techniques.
Material is the vehicle of her thoughts. All her work – paintings, objects and jewellery – is inextricably linked and informs each other.
Coach of Fiona Frew, Fran Carter, Lisa van Hulst, Tūī Diprose
Iris Bodemer
1970 Paderborn (DE)
1989 – 1992 Berufskolleg für Design, Schmuck und Gerät, Pforzheim (DE)
1992 – 1996 Hochschule für Gestaltung, Pforzheim (DE)
1997 – 1998 Sandberg Insitute, Amsterdam, (NL)
since 1996 Studio in Pforzheim (DE)
since 2014 Teaching at the Berufskolleg für Design, Schmuck und Gerät,
Goldschmiedeschule mit Uhrmacherschule, Pforzheim (DE)
International exhibitions,workshops and lectures
Works in private and public collections
Representing galleries:
Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen (NL)
Jewelers’werk, Washington D.C. (US)
Galerie Annick Zufferey (CH)
Instagram: @iris.bodemer
Coach of Denise Callan, Genie Lee, Rose Pickernell, Rachel Chapman
Katharina Dettar
Born in Fürth, raised in Catalonia, living in London.
Katharina holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, and previously studied in Idar-Oberstein, Lappeenranta and Barcelona. Her practice explores the notions of jewellery and object through materials. Having an interest and awareness in the origin of these, part of her outcomes investigates themes such as waste, sustainability, and nature.
Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Europe, North America and Asia. Her pieces are part of public collections in Museum Arnhem, CODA Museum Apeldoorn, Muzeum Cesueho Raje Turnov, the International Collection of Contemporary Jewellery Legnica and the Royal College of Art Collection London.
The Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes supported her throughout her studies in Germany and UK. Winner of the Talente Prize in Munich and the Förderpreis des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz in 2010.
Currently a permanent senior lecturer at Central Saint Martins, visiting lecturer at University of Herfordshire, Guest lecturer at the Royal College of Art. Katharina worked as a gallery manager at Gallery S O London from 2017 to its closure in 2020.
HS8 blog posts:
A Short Story Instead of an Artist Statement
I called Mum in Korea to tell her I’m in trouble with a lot of deadlines, as usual. I didn’t tell her I might be homeless soon, or that I’m too broke to send her next month’s allowance, or that I’m on trial as a victim of a crime in this foreign country after 15 years...
Inheritance
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” Unknown I felt that perhaps I had gone insane as I looked back through the piles of almost identical cyanotype prints I made in creating the work inheritance. The process was the...
Beginning to See the Light: Final Exhibition for Handshake 8
Lately, I’ve found myself resonating with a line from Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground days: “Well, I’m beginning to see the light.” Though Reed's words may have come from a different place entirely, the sense of slow-building euphoria in those lyrics feels fitting as I...
MIKAMI Seiko and the abject
Seiko Mikami (1961 – 2015) was a Japanese artist known for her large-scale installations. I had the opportunity to experience her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, when I visited Japan last year. Upon entry I encountered, Scale (1993), an installation...