The work of Maarten Donders is an odyssey of elements that are connected with the strength and fragility of human existence. He is interested in the phenomena around human perception. He has a fascination for objects or attributes that man creates and apparently needs to be able to see, feel, hear or experience.

 

His ideas are often compiled or elaborated details that are related to myths, rituals, and metaphysical subjects.

In a primitive-looking object ``Le sable Sauvage `` he refers to the desert, where one possible make use of old instruments that can generate anything, detect or highlight a magical place.

A ceramic item titled ``Cosmic labyrinth``created in an earlier stage, seems to have arisen from the random combination of completely different objects.

When I look closer I see this object located in the middle, a form which could indicate a grail, beneath a star shape, on the grail-like balancing a spiny ball. A star, a grail and a fruit or seed shape. He says about this:

 

``With the star I suggest the universe of which man is part of, with the cup or urn, I refer to the holy grail. Man in his quest often keep hold on to, trying to find shelter or salvation in faith. With the sphere I refer to nutrition and thus growth, possibly sowing a seed which can germinate again to the birth of something new. A cycle without an end. . ``

 

In his later work he is as it were figuratively looking for boundaries, where the distance between man and nature but also destiny between thembecomes visible. In some of his sculptures, but also in his drawings he suggests a process in which transformation or transience reaches expression.

 

In a carved dynamic object with the title ``memories``, he refers to something that has human characteristics, he says about this:

`` Although at first glance it seems a compressed car wreck, it's actually a hodgepodge of memories from a lifetime, the end, with its glory and its irreversible decay. . ``

 

In summary, it means that Maarten Donders collect physical evidence, signs of passion, beauty and finitude of human existence which can express. He wants to express the tangible sound of life, but also moments of ecstasy, which slowly fade down in memory, and eventually will fade.

 

Text Gigi the Bruyne