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Pinky Finger Trophy

HOUSE OF RUBBER, 2024

Object

Pinky Finger Trophy is a sculptural object created in 2024 by House of Rubber, the studio founded by artist Marlou Breuls. With a punk and surreal aesthetic, the vase explores femininity through looping forms and colours that are deliberately strange and artificial.

The piece marks a shift in Breuls’ practice. Trained in fashion design, she has gradually shifted her focus toward plastic and sculptural materials, guided by an instinctive, open-ended approach to form. 

The project took shape during a three-month residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre (EKWC) in the Netherlands, where Breuls worked with clay for the first time. In an interview with ARCHIVEofOBJECTS, she describes the material as offering an unexpected freedom: “it’s like a liquid material that you can use to create anything you have in your mind.”

Drawing on the material qualities of clay, Breuls reengineered a shooting machine of her own design, adapting it to shape ceramic. The result is Pinky Finger Trophy, a complex sculptural piece that combines the soft, flowing appearance of its form with a compact, solid structure. It captures the ironic and ambiguous visual language that runs through the studio’s work.

A series of three elements

Pinky Finger Trophy is part of a series of three ceramic pieces. Alongside Curly Girl and Dressy Dressoir, it forms a triptych that reimagines and subverts traditional furnishings historically associated with domestic femininity.

Pinky Finger Trophy, Image Courtesy of House of Rubber
Pinky Finger Trophy, Image Courtesy of House of Rubber

The three sculptures come together to form an abstract boudoir,  an intimate, imagined setting where the artist stages a personal reflection on femininity. It is a space suspended between elegant and weird, populated by objects that appear familiar but reveal unsettling, ironic details on closer inspection.

Smooth, inviting surfaces are interrupted by bodily elements, such as the pinky fingers encircling the Trophy. Decorative at first glance, they are intentionally imperfect, almost grotesque.

With this series, Breuls investigates the visual codes of femininity by blending grace with disorder, delicacy with visual tension. The largest piece in the triptych, Dressy Dressoir, stands as tall as the artist and weighs over 400 kilograms. A ceramic furniture-sculpture that challenges the conventions of design.

Keep Reading

Inside the House of Rubber: An Interview with Marlou Breuls >

Details

Find it Online

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