Cindy focuses on the large areas of color and shapes that appear all around her: traffic signs, orange PVC pipes on construction sites or green trash cans along the A2. A round concrete drop-off bulb marks the city without our noticing, a yellow-blue train shoots unnoticed through the green landscape. These industrial mono- or dichromes speak a universal language, but are designed only from their function. Red is danger; yellow is beware! Although we all perceive the world differently, the objects create a collective pattern of expectation. They alarm us, but they also quickly disappear from our minds again; the relationship in many cases is brief and impersonal. These self-repeating objects evoke in me an experience that oscillates from recognition, to alienation and back again. These experiences, unlike the objects themselves, are not universal, but individual and personal. Cindy tries to unravel these relationships with the banal in her work.

These situations translate into sculptures or paintings that Cindy uses as elements in installations. She often works with materials such as plaster, Styrofoam, acrylic, cast rubber and wood. The personal touch as a maker is important to her; ”It unravels my personal relationship and fascination with the original, the object, the moment of the time.” Almost clumsily and childishly set up, the work contrasts with the industrially produced objects that Cindy is so fascinated by. How can you strip an object of function and meanwhile make a colored surface meaningful? She wants these objects to lose their status as mass-produced products and become unique and special for a moment. They get a personality and tell a story again. They are no longer flat. They are no longer banal.

• Exhibitions at Galerie Bart: Evergreen 2023

Cindy Bakker, born in 1989, currently lives and works in Rotterdam. After graduating from Nimento in Utrecht with a degree in Communication and Design, she continued her studies at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. In 2013 she graduated there with a Bachelors degree in Lifestyle Design. In 2018, she obtained a Master of Fine Arts at AKV St. Joost in Den Bosch. In 2016, Cindy did a residency at Art Gouda in Het Oude Weeshuis, Gouda followed by a residency at Witte Rook, Breda, supported by BKKC and Gemeente Breda.

Cindy has been exhibiting her work since 2013, in solo and group exhibitions. Among these occasions are exhibitions like Play at Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Folly Factory at Expo Bart in Nijmegen, Bees at De Hortus in Amsterdam, What do we dance for at Nectar Gallery in Tbilisi, Georgia and Nieuwe liefde at Kunstliefde in Utrecht. Cindy has also participated in various art fairs such as Prospects at Art Rotterdam, This Art Fair in Amsterdam and Big Art at Hembrug in Zaandam.