Burnishing, a polishing technique, is a prehistoric method used on ceramics before glaze was invented. In this technique you polish dry clay with a smooth object that makes the clay shine. Rosalie Wammes recently became interested in this again. During her Masters in Fine Art at the Chelsea College of Arts in London, she had become more involved in sculpture, which earned her the Gilbert Bayes Awards for international young sculptors: a one-year mentoring program for a small group of aspiring international sculptors. In combination with an R&D commitment, she wants to use the highly tactile burnishing technique to research sculptures that you not only see but also feel, into how sculptural skin can become an extension of yourself. She wants to do this in collaboration with Kalorama, a center for the deafblind in Nijmegen.  

This tactile and multi-sensory approach fits Wammes' holistic vision to depict a futuristic feminine system: art as a counterforce to capitalism and hierarchy. From a background in the theater and music scene (BA Toneelacademie Maastricht) she now moves into performance and visual arts. With movement and song, with pigments and plexiglass and flowers and other transforming materials, she designs rituals for a secular time. She gave performances at the HEM, Eye, Holland Festival, Motel Mozaïque, and worked with several well-known theater companies. This latest project will bring her closer to the core of her craft, she believes.  

In a number of meetings at Kalorama she addresses her research questions: “How can I make a sculpture that evokes liveliness and intimacy through touch? Which techniques can I use to process and deepen the surfaces of the sculpture?” She is concerned with the accessibility of sculpture and she also looks at how she unites social and artistic facets, and she goes back to the initial question, how she can evoke an intimacy and delay of time with sculpture. She then continues with the material research in her studio, which she then further investigates, experiments and reflects on with the clients. She then works in her studio towards a final image or installation with one or more sculptures. She will be showing them in Nijmegen as well as in Rotterdam, at a location yet to be determined.