Mosaic Sculptures

 

Technique

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Trencadis is a type of mosaic made from cemented-together tile shards and broken chinaware, as a name for this mosaic technique, it refers to the recycled or 'scrounged' nature of the materials.

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Koenraad uses trencadis in his own way, instead of cementing the pieces together onto something he uses silicon to construct the pieces while the inside remains empty. The sculptures are constructed piece by piece as building blocks instead of gluing them on to something in a decorative way, the material functions also as the construction, so the decoration is the construction.

 

In his sculptures he makes constructions with broken pieces of ceramic tiles and beach glass collected from Burgazada Madam Martha Koyu (beach) by making them whole again in organic 3 dimensional shapes. He doesn't break the tiles himself, they are already broken and washed by the sea, he just collects them from the beach and assembles them together as big 3 dimensional puzzles.

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Working with found material from the beach, cleans the beach and gives a new life to what is considered waste material. They used to dump this wonderful colorful tiles from the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's which were once part of the homes of people in

the sea and the sea breaks them further and washes them and spits them out on the beach where they remain.

 

When you throw something into the sea it doesnʼt mean it is gone, the ceramics donʼt dissapear that easily and itʼs still there and it takes a lot of time before itʼs a small pebble.

 

Recycling and Upcycling

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By recycling the waste materials Koenraad is “upcycling” the materials, upcycling is converting waste materials into new materials or products of “higher quality” and “greater functionality”. By reusing the waste material into colorful sculptures and

structures he is adding value to it and giving them a new function as art objects.