My artistic practice is centered around a material-led inquiry into the political and emotional geography of adaptation and constraint. It deliberately engages with processes outside of my control, like fermentation, growth, and aging — as metaphors for how marginalized bodies negotiate boundaries they did not choose. This allows me to explore the complex negotiation between imposed authority and biological agency.
Kombucha scobys and fermentation are central beings in my work, whereas adaptation within boundaries is a crucial subject. Although I define their boundaries, the materials resist my full management by adapting and stretching in ways far beyond my control. My role is one of intentional surrender to observing and learning by doing; of following the material from which the work gets born, not submitting it to the constraints of a predefined idea. Evolution and experience of the living material outweighs the final object.
This embrace of serendipity drives also my other work: found drawings end up behind glass after an empathic fantasy exercise about its origin, its maker and what I can contribute from my imagination to this inner world on paper. Inner spaces, memories, and emotional fragments are playfully highlighted as were it a close collaboration between playmates. Also here the tension between the container and the contained are at stake.

COMING UP:

14.05 - 24.05 pfa(rt)s " a landscape of exposure" - MHKA Antwerp
27.06 - limburgse biennale - Oddapark Limburg
16.07 - 17.08 biophony: beats of love - extracity Antwerp
04.09 - 03.10 space-collection - coolcity2000 Leuven

A living composition developed at the Antwerp Queer Arts Residency, exploring what it means to find your voice and to hold space for others finding theirs.

Glass vessels filled with live kombucha cultures are monitored in real time. pH levels, sugar levels, and the quiet biology of fermentation are translated into sound. In tuning into these microbial voices, the installation becomes a shared ecology of care

the hub - arttelex

eyes wide shut. sheeps

le petit prinxe

BOOX.SPACE, Haarlem

"All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it." – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

In Le Petit Prinxe, I show a visual ode to childhood's naive, unfiltered simpleness. Using reverse glass painting, a technique where marks are made blindly on the back of the surface, each piece emerges as a surprise: a conversation between the maker, the artist and its inner child, where memories materialize in delicate lines and simple bright forms.

These works are preservations: fragile feelings encased behind glass. Like Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince protecting his rose, i guard vanishing states of being, through a visual interplay of whats said and what still needs to be done.

I ask: How do we hold what slips away? When did we stop seeing stars as miracles?

solo shows:
2025 le petit prinxe - Boox.space Haarlem NL

residencys:

2025 Antwerp queer arts festival - De studio BE
2024 Bos academie - het bos BE

group shows:

2026 pf(art)s "a landscape of exposure" - MHKA antwerp BE
2026 nature in dialogue - dekunstfabriek 699 NL
2026 days like this - albert van abbe huis curated by bureau parso NL
2025 XX in it together - W139 NL by dead darlings
2025 kunstlijn Haarlem NL
2025 a night called quest - Destudio BE
2025 pas foundation for duval BE
2025 the hub - arttelex BE
2025 Museumnacht - het bos BE
2024 closing - kieken centrale BE
2024 10 years het bos - het bos BE

projects:

2024 founded T-SPACE
2024 Window washers
2026 aesop artist campaign

my studio is based at t-space

schoolstraat 27, 2060 Antwerpen Belgium & jan nieuwenhuijzenstraat 25b, 2013zb Haarlem, the Netherlands

+32456420513

deltavmelle@gmail.com

https://ko-fi.com/ratelherbals

www.instagram.com/deltavanmelle/