In her practice of built up images, Dutch artist Ruth van Beek is somewhere between an archivist and an archeologist, excavating and cataloging images and objects with found materials and painted shapes of paper. With six mid-century objects, hand collected by The Line, Van Beek rearranges each one from her Koog aan de Zaan studio. Each object is one-of-a-kind and part of our largest online offering of found vintage pieces from Collected by The Line.

By assembling and arranging, Van Beek creates images with a kinetic quality. “I always find the fun and challenge to work with the material that is given to me,” says Van Beek. Here, strokes of gutsy, exuberant color and pleated paper obscure the boundaries of each vase and sculpture for “a unique dialogue between image and object.”

I respond to the photos of the objects, the backdrops, and their colors which are quite dim and remind me of winter and autumn. Of inside the house, of evening, and soft light.Ruth van Beek

Something special emerges from a collection of rare and anonymous objects. Objects like a parchment vase from Italy made in either the 1940s or 1950s (we can’t be sure) or a plywood block sculpture from California (who was the sculptor and what were the circumstances?) leave more to the imagination than those with a familiar story.