2 December 2025
Artist Marie Caye has been conceptually flirting with transformation for quite some time. Now it was time for the Mondriaan resident to put these thoughts into practice at Make. Using glass as a new material, Marie ultimately explored 2 directions: pushing the material to its limits and respecting its inherent qualities.
Written by Pleuni van Keulen
Multidimensional work
After graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2017, it felt good for Marie to return to Eindhoven. Having little experience working with glass, this was her material of choice to explore at Make. Marie: “With my practice in drawing and sculpting, I was already going from flat to sculpture. With glass, I’m also able to work in two and three dimensions. So, it felt like a good match. As I was already experimenting with glass and copper wires – making complex 3D glass assemblies with a strong connection – continuing to explore this felt right. A second experiment I was going for was silk screen printing on glass and deforming the glass in the oven. And the third experiment was trying to paint with glass as it were.”
Freeing the prisoner from its medium
Painting with glass, now that deserves a bit more explanation. Marie elaborates: “Imagine using a glass rod, which I deformed into a shape.” This shape forms the line, the brush stroke, if you will. “Now, also imagine a flat piece of glass being the paper. Now both the ‘line’ and the ‘paper’ are glass. I wanted to fuse the deformed rod into the ‘paper’, asking myself the question: what is flat and what has volume? It felt like the line was the prisoner of the glass, and I wondered if I could free it from the medium by going outside of the shape.” This way Marie researched ‘painting’ with glass, an experiment she eventually abandoned.
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The rough and the clean
Investigating these 3 approaches – assembling glass with copper, printing and ‘painting’ on glass helped Marie understand the material better. She continued to research the combination of glass and copper while also discovering the wonders of waterjet cutting. “Cutting glass by hand offers limited options, but with waterjet cutting, you can make a computer drawing and cut crazy shapes,” she excitedly says. Needless to say, she researched this technique as well. Marie: “The beauty of glass is that it can look effortless and liquid. But if you push and distort it, it can look really forced. I continued to investigate these contrasting approaches.”
Owning the material
Marie wanted to work very intentionally with the material, she says. “Do you impose your will on it, or do you respect its qualities as is and listen to it? I found it special to do both in parallel. I now understand glass so much better, also because I learned a lot from the advisors and other artists at Make. It feels like I’ve passed a threshold – like earning a swimming certificate that allows me to safely explore deeper waters. So, I will definitely continue to work with glass.”
The joy of experimenting
Another experiment involved silk screen printing on glass. But as in life, things don’t always go according to plan. So, Marie diverted from this idea and went for a trial-and-error silk-screen printing process instead. “I wanted to make a bit of a marbling effect with the ink – not a gradient but making the print look damaged. So, I did a small-scale experiment, which didn’t work out at all on a larger scale!” The joy of experimenting is that you don’t know where you end up. Marie: “If you don’t know the process, you can wind up in a very different place. I now definitely can more clearly see the dead corners.”
Decay and dissolution of capitalism
The final prints are about 20 meters, covering the walls of an exhibition room at TAC like a tapestry. On it, Marie depicted a falling Michelin man. She explains its significance and what the exhibition is about. Marie: “I’m interested in decay and dissolution, things falling apart. I was born in a town in France, next to the Michelin tyre factory. For me, capitalism and decay go hand in hand. I am wondering how long these kinds of industries will last. They seem strong and big, but they stand on fragile ground, with a concerning colonial history, abuse in Vietnam, greenwashing and such. So, I’m depicting my fantasy, the dissolution of the capitalist icon.”
Marie continues: “On top of this, my glass works in the exhibition visualise the gravestone slabs on the floor of de Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. Very figurative, with animals and plants. They’re symbols of power – only wealthy people could afford such a gravestone. But as of now, they have been heavily walked over and are therefore heavily worn. This will of people to become eternal in stone, creates a striking contrast with my version: the one made of fragile glass. At the same time, the glass – especially when put on the floor, interacting with people walking around it – is a parallel to the fragility of the stone that did break down over time.”
Opening up to a world of glass
Not knowing a material can be challenging, admittedly says Marie. “Glass has a steep learning curve, but it was definitely a challenge I wanted to take on. For a long time, I was flirting with transformation in a conceptual way. As glass is very transformative, I finally found a material to put this concept into practice.” Working at Make opened the door wide for Marie, allowing her to explore this new field and material, with lots of inspiration and expertise all around. “Make as a social environment is very rich, meeting all these people and advisors. It’s very generous, and the ways to work together fit great with my practice, as I like to work interactively. So, I will definitely return to Make in the future.”
Curious about the work Marie made at Make? Visit her exhibition Tired Town at TAC in Eindhoven, on view until 21 December 2025.
Photography: Ruud Hermans, Marie Caye