Festival Debut – "Doodles" – Maurice la Rooy

Arttrakt Gallery, ul. Ofiar Oświęcimskich 1
Exhibition open: 18.10.2017 – 10.11.2017
Opening: 17.10.2017, 8 pm


Maurice La Rooy is making interesting and compelling work using glass as the starting point. His work has been evolving significantly over the past two years. He began working in glass at Van Tetterode studio in Amsterdam and though he does not have formal academic training in glass, he has travelled and taken many workshops and worked for many artists. I think Maurice is making a step towards a very different way of perceiving the materials than is traditionally thought of in the European glass movement.

John Moran

 
MAURICE LA ROOY
Graduated from the Mediacollege Amsterdam in 2012 with a degree in Graphic Arts. After realizing that working behind a computer fulltime may not be the job he had dreamed of, he began working at the Van Tetterode studio where he learned the basics of glass making.
In 2014, he was awarded the Aventurijn scholarship to attend the Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA, USA, and study with Shelley Muzylowski Allen & Rik Allen, where he began to develop his sculpting abilities and become more intertwined with the international glass community.
He has participated in two two-person shows with Louis La Rooy, first at the Arken Museum in Denmark in 2015 and then at the Galeria Municipal de Sao Bras in Portugal in 2015, and in 14 group exhibitions in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
In 2015 he joined the team at Gent Glas in Ghent, Belgium, working together with John Moran, artist and co-founder/operator at the studio. He has spent the last 2 years developing his sculpting and glass making abilities and splits his time between developing and creating his own work, free-lancing, and teaching all the introductory glassblowing classes at Gent Glas. Currently, Maurice works mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Using a variety of materials in combination with glass, Maurice has developed a very distinctive style. His work is figurative in essence; portraying his opinions about and criticisms of modern day society, frequently returning to the imagery of death and the way we perceive it.