Last February was the first edition of Design Biennale Rotterdam, which I was very curious about. The city has a strong design culture, expectations were high.
After a weekend spent seeing as much of the program as possible, I started making a mental list of the works that would actually stay with me. One of the first things on that list was the Pinky Finger Trophy which I saw at Weena, a former office building still fitted out with cubicles and blue carpet.
Since then, I’d been wanting to meet the studio who made it: House of Rubber, and the artist behind it, Marlou Breuls. Last week, I finally did. Marlou’s energy, imagination, and openness come through both in conversation and in her work, it was a real pleasure to meet her.
It was last February that I saw your Pinky Finger Trophy at the Design Biennale in Rotterdam, such a joyful object! That’s how I got to know your work. What’s the story behind it?
I have my studio, House of Rubber, which I started in 2016 and initially was my under my own name, Marlou Breuls. I graduated in fashion design, so that’s how I started, but a few years into being a fashion designer, I had the feeling that for me it’s not necessarily about making the garment, but more about working with materials and creating shapes with materials. So I started to experiment a lot with clay, rubber, plaster, all things that I learned by myself.
And then I got the opportunity to do a residency at the EKWC, the European Center for Ceramics in the Netherlands. I applied without having any experience in working with clay whatsoever, but I wanted to dive deeper into working with all sorts of materials, because I didn’t do an art school where you usually learn all this stuff. It was a nice opportunity to see how my handwriting as an artist works within the material of clay.
The residency was last year in January, for three months, and from the beginning on, I’ve immediately fell in love with clay because it’s like a liquid material that you can use to create anything you have in your mind.
And while I was working there, these ideas came to life of implementing my signature elements I usually work with, which is still the human body, but in a different way. And also creating something that you want to touch, and invites you, and has an absurd humor at the same time. And there, the Pinky Finger Trophy came to life.
I was experimenting with this shooting machine that I developed, which I usually use for rubber pieces, so I can shoot rubber in three dimensional shapes. And it’s almost like a 3D pen or a 3D printer, but handled manually. During the residency I was like, okay, maybe I can put clay in this machine and see what happens. And that worked out better than I ever dreamt. So from there on I had ideas of creating this structure that feels loopy and liquid and really invites you to touch. And also of creating really big, hard sculptures that look soft.
On your website I saw that Pinky Finger Trophy is part of a collection with two other pieces, Curly Girl and Dressy Dressoir. How do the three objects relate?
Well, the idea came from trying to figure out what my handwriting is as an artist, instead of a fashion designer. I have been experimenting for the last few years on how to make an object that has a certain idea of functionality, and then take that away. I always start from a functional piece, like a lamp, or a vase or a dressoir or whatever. And then by using techniques and materials, I look into taking that functionality out of the object.
So I came up with this idea of making these three pieces that are almost like a boudoir, a women’s room where in the early days you could just be yourself, and you had all these little things that women use. It’s very elegant and in a way a bit weird, thinking about it now, to have these women’s rooms.
I’ve always had this love-hate relationship with being a woman, so that was a very interesting point to investigate: how can I make something super girly? But in the meantime also have this punk aesthetic and something that’s like really living on the edge of these realms. How to make it inviting, but also uncanny – it’s about playing with the tension of these elements. Therefore I added these fingers, which you don’t immediately see, but when you look closer, like oh, it’s fingers, it’s this reaction. And they have nail polish and is also a bit gross and not perfect.
And with the big cabinet [Dressy Dressoir] it was a super big challenge, because it’s 1.70m high, it’s my hight, and it’s 400 kilos of clay.
Twisting this body around it makes it really uncomfortable, but also very sensual. I had the most fun time ever making it, and it really is almost a visual homage to me being a woman, and maybe other women too.
You work with a lot of materials like rubber, ceramics and textile, and by looking at the TextielMuseum exhibition pieces it seems that you also like experimenting with technology, like robotics and 3D weaving. What’s the relationship between technology and the manual touch in your work?
I always try to create objects that spark something with the viewer. For example, Lady in Rug, is this very big tapestry that I made. I tufted it with my team for over two years and it came from the idea that I graduated as a fashion designer with a carpet, an actual Persian rug, and I cut it up and do this gigantic dress. When I rebranded my studio to House of Rubber I wanted to make a piece that is a transition from who I was before I started House of Rubber, and how it translated to what the vision of the studio is now.
I rebranded my studio to House of Rubber, which is not only about rubber, but it’s more about the house of something very flexible. It can be liquid, it feels weird, it can be anything, literally. So I created that project again, but this time making it a visual piece that combines all my fascinations. It still has this fashion reference by having this dress growing out of it, but it also has the human body, literally sucked into the carpet.
It also has this element of technology: it breaths, the chest moves up and down, and the arm slightly caresses the carpets. And that gives it this interesting point of view, because it’s literally inviting you to take part of being on the carpet, but there’s this huge woman laying on top of it, so you’re not able to really go sit on it. At the same time you really want to touch it, and I find that touch is very important in my work, it creates a certain relationship with the object.
It’s the same idea of Room Divider [also shown at TextielMuseum Tilburg exhibition: SHAPE – Body, Fashion, Identity] I made this curtain that goes in and out, because it gives life to the object, and for me that’s the most interesting way to create. Can the object become alive, can it become another life? I have these building blocks within every project, and they are always the same, but I try to build a different thing every time.
Do you have a favorite material?
Well, obviously I have been putting a lot of research in rubber and silicones in the last two, three years, and the material for me is really interesting. In the beginning I used it for making molds in a very traditional way, like body casts. But then I figured out this technique in which I could use this material for totally different stuff, and that makes rubber quite interesting.
It’s one of my favorite materials because it has this human reference, it feels like a human skin and if you use it in a certain way, it becomes flexible, so I can make objects that move when touched, like a human. I can see all these human elements within the material and I can make it hard. I can make it soft. I can make it a body suit. I can make literally anything with it. So at the moment, I think rubber is the favorite one.
But I think ceramics are straight after, number two. And I can also imagine that within a few years, my mind goes to a whole different direction again, but at the moment I’m really focusing on seeing what this material can do.
Sometimes I envy the people that have their craft and they’re so in love with it that they can do it forever. But for me, at a certain point, I feel the urge to do something new. And it’s a good point but sometimes it’s a weak point, but for me the change keeps my job fun, I like to dive into new territories that are unknown.
How do you feel about designing for industrial production? Does that interest you at all?
Yeah, in a way it does. At the moment I’m making mostly commission pieces, a lot of museums, and artists that are like, okay, create this world for me.
But I’m also really interested in seeing how I can make pieces that would become more affordable for people. For me it’s really important that when somebody buys a piece of mine, they have this intimate relationship with it. So creating something that can be affordable and reachable for more people to experience this feeling would be amazing.
I always start with this very experimental approach to a project. And I haven’t worked with a production company so far because I really like doing everything myself. But if there’s ever the opportunity, or a company asks me to create something in a collaboration, we would love that. So, yeah, I’m really open to it.
Do you think about sustainability within your work, for example in the materials you use? Is this a thing for you?
When I use to work in fashion, I must say really honestly, I didn’t really work with sustainability a lot. I made only one-of-a kind pieces, so it’s not that I was mass producing anything.
But I do work a lot now with rubber, which is not a very healthy material to work with, so I’m researching. I have these friends that have a 3D studio, that are researching whether they can help me become more sustainable by having the ideas that I have in my mind being translated by them in a 3D program. This would automatically suggests things like hardness, and it would visualise the movement of the rubber and shape how it’s going to look. That way that would solve a lot of testing, because a lot of material is used for testing something before you can make the actual piece. And this would obviously make that process a lot more sustainable. And then the other way, I always mix all these rubbers and I color them by hand and often there is material left over and with all these leftover material, I make little vessels. So I use everything that we produce.
So that’s now where I am at with the sustainable part. But I think, if we’re going to make like a lot of pieces, let’s say in a collaboration for production, etc., then we definitely also have to locate more sustainable rubbers. Recently I saw this article about rubber being transformed into a more clayable version, one that you can bake it in the oven, like rubber-clay. I’m very sad that I didn’t come up with that idea! So I’m trying my best to see where I can improve, and I think that’s the best I can do at the moment.
We mentioned this before, but let’s get back to it for a moment. You were working in fashion and then you decided to move towards sculpture and objects. Was there a trigger there, or it just happened?
When I was working in fashion, I already had this fascination with materials. I didn’t make just a nice dress, but I made latex suits or a dress made from a carpet or I used this second hand motor jacket that I cut up and made something else with.
I always was experimenting a lot with the material, and at a certain point, I felt a bit limited making only wearable items, because I had these crazy ideas of growing stuff and I always approached my practice like I’m in a lab, mixing and looking, creating a chemical reaction with this material and then it starts bubbling and then what if I can put that bubbling stuff on a piece of textile?
That’s my point of view and how I work. Very chaotic and very intuitive. From there on it grew and I slowly stepped away from it, but I still do make costumes. Now I’m making a lot of rubber pieces for artist, which for me is the ideal combination of what my practice used to be and what it is now.
Okay, last question, what’s next for you? What’s happening in the next few months?
Well, just recently, like last week, we opened and exhibition where one of our works is presented at Z33 in Belgium [Colour. Seeing beyond pigment]. It’s a rubber piece that’s made in collaboration with a biolab that works with melanine. It’s a biotechnology way of working with a lot of different sorts of paints – the peace is called No Hard Peelings.
Now I’m going to Japan for a three month residency, but in the meantime, my assistant in the studio is working on presentation that will happen in the first week of September in Utrecht [Gaudeamus Festival 2025]. It’s an exhibition in collaboration with a director and a singer and it’s going to be a performance about mourning and loss. It’s going to be two very big sculptural rubber pieces, one is two meters high, the other one is five meters long. And it’s implemented with sound designs, so when you walk through the room towards an object, the sound becomes more audible, and when you go further, the sound becomes more abstract. So it’s really like this 3D experience again.
Then after that I have some stuff lined up for a Belgian artist that’s going on a tour. And maybe a solo exhibition in London in 2026, but that’s still in the works, so I cannot say much about it.
I’m really happy that I’ve been booked until 2026, it’s a luxurious position. Because it was different, just a few years ago after COVID, it was horrible for most artists, so i’m really glad to now finally get to see some results of the whole rebranding, and people starting to understand what you’re doing and, yeah, still working hard, but slowly getting to a place where I feel really comfortable.
Thank you for your time Marlou, was really a pleasure talking to you. Hope to see some of those works in the next months!
Thank you, bye!
For a closer look at House of Rubber and the many directions their work takes, check @houseofrubber.xyz on Instagram or visit houseofrubber.xyz.
