A mirror is not only an object that shows us our appearance: when we look into it, we see the world reflected, with ourselves at its center.

Artist Elsemarijn Bruys has created a new installation in Villa where reflection plays the leading role. On the wall hangs a mirror that slowly moves forward, like a door opening and closing in its frame. In the same space stand several pedestals holding elongated blue sculptures. As the mirror shifts, not only does the reflection of the viewer change, but so do all the blue objects around that body.

In spring 2025, Elsemarijn presented her solo exhibition MINIMAL ART ON ACID at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. There she transformed the attic of the museum into a disorienting world with one large moving mirror, sliding from the front of the attic floor to the back. The wooden beams of the attic were completely distorted in this reflection. For Elsemarijn, these warped beams were a gift. So when she received an invitation from Villa, she wanted to take this effect further. “Not only to let you see yourself distorted in the mirror, but also to make something else in the space move along.” By adding posts to her installation, she emphasizes the motion of the mirror. Much of her work deals with this interplay between different objects: they need one another to transform, through reflection, mirroring, or movement.

Square

Recently she discovered that many of her works originate from a square that is then manipulated. The blue sculptures at Villa were created by vacuum-forming sheets of plexiglass. These sheets started as squares. Her Puff sculptures are another example: flexible square plastic sheets that are stitched into soft, voluminous forms. The end result breathes lightness and motion, with no trace of the original square left.

In daily life, Elsemarijn pays close attention to rhythm and proportion in objects. The grill of a truck, for instance, and the way its lines form a pattern. Rhythm matters to her. What is the order of objects in an installation? How many objects are shown? What rhythm, what pattern do they create together? In this sense, a mirror is an intriguing choice. By placing a mirror, she can manipulate the perceived rhythm or arrangement of objects. “With a mirror you raise the question of which reality is supposedly the real one. And more broadly: does something like ‘real’ even exist?”

In Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel used the mirror as a metaphor. For him, seeing yourself in the other (as in a mirror) was a process of recognition: you become aware of yourself because the other acknowledges you as a conscious being. The mirror serves here as an object confirming that you exist. Something like: I see my reflection, therefore I exist. Plato, on the other hand, saw reflections as images of the true reality, but not reality itself. For him, a reflection was always a copy, and therefore less real. In her work, Elsemarijn constantly stages this tension between the two extremes. What is reality? Can we take what we see as truth?

Tracing back

The blue plastic objects transform the light entering Villa’s space. That light is then reflected again by the moving mirror. In Elsemarijn’s work, you can always see how she manipulates reality. You notice the mirror moving back and forth and warping the view, or the bent plastic altering the sunlight that falls on it. This openness about how the work is made creates a charged experience. You know she controls everything, and yet you let yourself be carried along. That stands in sharp contrast to something like social media, where you know you’re being manipulated—but the question remains: how, and to what extent?

Her sculptures often appear inviting: shiny, smooth, rounded shapes. “When I see my own work, I feel like touching it. I actually don’t want to, because fingerprints stay forever, but at the same time I want people to come close. In the sculptures you can observe yourself, but also the other, through the reflective materials I use. That voyeurism fascinates me. Who is looking at whom?”

Responding to each other

Elsemarijn’s works often respond to one another. New pieces almost always grow out of insights she has gained from earlier ones. Like the attic beams in Schiedam that led to the sculptures in Villa.

Elements of her duo exhibition Open Field with Femke Dekker in Nest in 2024 also echo in this installation. That show featured two imposing mirrors that slowly rotated on their axes, reflecting not only visitors but also the architecture from ever-changing angles. The installation was first shown in an old factory hall (the temporary home of Nest), but Elsemarijn hopes to present it again in a white space. Architecture always influences how her work is seen. In a white museum hall, the rotating mirrors would place the focus more squarely on visitors themselves, since the space would interfere less.

Her practice recalls the children’s game of telephone: each time a word is whispered along the circle, something of the original remains, but something also shifts. At the end, a completely new sound emerges. A phrase never heard before, yet still traceable to its origin.