Koosje Schmeddes

Koosje Schmeddes (°1978, Haarlem, Netherlands) creates situations breaking the passivity of the spectator. Schmeddes uses coincidental and seemingly random situations or imagery, resulting in assemblages, sculptures, and works on paper.

Schmeddes’s works leave the viewer orphaned with a mix of conflicting feelings and thoughts. Her works often deceive the viewer by creating confusion.

Her pieces of art reveal subtle details of odd, eccentric and humoristic elements. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, she wants the viewer to become part of the art as a kind of supplementary component. Art is entertainment: to be able to touch the work, as well as interact with the work is important.

Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies. Koosje Schmeddes currently lives and works in Antwerp.

About Schscht:

Schscht is an artist collective consisting of Koosje Schmeddes (NL) and Dirk Schellekens (B). Their joint studio is located in Antwerp. They have been creating visual works and performances/interventions since 2020.

With their artworks and performances they raise questions about impermanence, fragility and investigate the ways in which art can be part of our daily lives. Schscht is interested in the choices we make and the autonomy that accompanies them.

Their work has much in common with surrealism, humor and absurdism. Schscht enjoys and deals in unlikely images. They create work that looks like it shouldn’t exist. They often bring together domestic elements with elements and influences coming from a larger outside world. They constantly return to the confusion between image and object and the moments when they intersect.

Schscht plays with exchanges and relationships between different actors: artists, (public) (art) spaces and -whether accidental or not- audiences. Schscht investigates the ways in which art can be part of our daily lives, and what the relationship is between artist and spectator. Schscht often seeks the boundaries between art(s) and audience and blurs them by allowing the audience to actively participate in the design of the image.