Dimensions: H 28 cm x diameter 18 cm
Material: white porcelain
Finish: inside glossy, outside matte
Color: pure white
First prototype: 2019
Produced: Handmade in Limited Edition by Stockmans Porselein Belgium
Each Tulip comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the designer, with the progressive numbering of the Limited Edition and with the stamp of Stockmans Porselein Belgium.
“Silent Tulip is a pure white porcelain vase in the shape of a tulip flower.”
"A fragile, white flower's impalpability gives a new meaning to the importance of silence, purity, and essentiality in our lives, where a chaotic and insensitive world is shutting down any attempt at spirituality."
Silent Tulip has been developed as an organic natural form, which was a very difficult challenge.
Every flower, every single Silent Tulip is lightly different, as every flower is unique in the Nature.
I wanted to reflect in this design my feeling of a flower, so what is in front of the eyes of the beholder is not simply a realistic tulip, but more a reflection of my personal perception of the flower.
I worked with porcelain, because porcelain is the best natural material to reflect a flower's fragility, the fragility of its petals. Porcelain is white and white is pure and silent, and that's the essence of what I wished to reflect in this too chaotically coloured and noisy world. I chose to use white only, because a non-color is stronger and becomes more visible and I wanted to make the invisible visible again.
The inside is glossy, reflective like a water surface. The outside is matte, non reflective, in its own strength and vulnerability.
It was an intense and long process and I am happy how it came out of the oven. I could not predict the outcome, which was also an exciting process. Porcelain is durable and water resistant. But the shrinkage factor of porcelain (17%) is very high, which was also a challenge to calculate properly. Silent Tulip is 28 cm high and has a diameter of 18 cm.
Working together with Piet Stockmans has been an honor, an enriching experience and a collaboration I will never forget.
Silent Tulip gives the perception of a very fragile and precious essence and is made of a metaphysical white that is slightly different from the white we normally experience. My aim has been to create a feeling of purity, fragility, and quietness and to reproduce the imperceptible breathing movement of a flower in the wind.
I terribly miss the poetry in this world nowadays and I wish to make the world resonate with it.
I wanted to capture the slow-motion movement caused by the wind in the flower fields. I wanted to show the fragility and beauty of a single flower. I wanted to make a poem in the shape of a tulip. I wanted to connect people again with Nature and let them have again an eye for the small, invisible things surrounding us.
That we feel fragility and beauty again, that we do not forget to wonder about the small, precious beauty in life. White is somehow invisible, but it becomes strongly visible because of its non-color intensity.
Tulip flower represents the beauty of Nature and what we receive from Nature is a blessing. Because we are so used to seeing flowers, we fail to comprehend their essential nature. Yet we perceive a flower as a living entity, so I wanted to show its true essence. The invisibility of a fragile, white flower, surrounded by a chaotic world, gives us back the silence and purity that we miss in the world.
Special Thanks to:
3D development: Christian Allebosch
Photography: Alberto Riccardo Messaggi
