17 april 2025, Flor Linckens
Floris Hovers: the art of play
Until 11 May, Gallery Untitled in Rotterdam is showing the solo exhibition 'Spelend reizen' ('Travelling through play' or 'Travelling by playing') by Floris Hovers. Spanning three rooms, the exhibition brings together a selection of familiar works and more recently developed pieces. Once again, Hovers shows how he is able to conjure up an entire world using the barest of means: a world that is clear and recognisable, where there's always room for imagination. His work may appear simple at first glance, but beneath that simplicity lies a deep and deliberate attention to form, colour and construction. Urban architecture is a recurring point of reference, as is the logic of toys – such as those from the former East Germany – where scarcity and inventiveness go hand in hand.
Floris Hovers (born 1976) lives in Raamsdonk and works in Raamsdonksveer, the village where he grew up. After studying structural engineering and presentation techniques, he graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2004. Two years later he established his own studio, where he has since been creating furniture, miniatures, toys, installations and autonomous objects. His work is held in various collections, including those of the Stedelijk Museum and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Museum JAN and the Drents Museum. The ArcheToys vehicles that first brought him international recognition can now be found in museum shops across the globe, including that of the MoMA.
Although trained as a designer, Hovers’ independent work possesses a distinctly artistic quality. The objects he creates speak of a world that is easy to grasp, yet consistently surprising. Much of his work arises from play and exploration: from looking, making and repeating. These are objects rooted in material research, yet they also touch on themes of memory, balance and recognition. Whether you're looking at a wooden tractor, a steel vehicle or a stylised cityscape, his works have a way of composing a world in which construction, colour and composition naturally fall into place. His pieces are tactile observations, often made from humble materials with an inherent history: pieces of discarded wood, honeycomb cardboard, table legs or other found components. What others might see as leftovers or packaging material, gains new meaning in the hands of Hovers.
His studio, located in the former concrete factory once run by his father and grandfather, is affectionately called his "playground": a place where he experiments freely with colour, proportion, composition and industrial form. Here, intuition and the joy of making take precedence over the pursuit of perfection. The world that emerges does not function as a critique or commentary, but rather as a counterbalance. Neither moralising nor cynical, his objects are exactly what they appear to be, and at the same time, much more. A boat, a factory or a cityscape may call to mind childhood memories of toys, yet they also explore the tension between functionality and aesthetics. Here, form, proportion and colour come together in ways that feel instinctively right. That balance between simplicity and imagination is at the heart of his work. It is precisely this clarity and openness that give his objects a universal, disarming quality, one that allows almost anyone to see something of themselves in them.
That clarity is the result of a process of reduction or, as Hovers describes it, the evaporation of the superfluous. What remains is the essence: an archetypal shape, a reduced visual language, a construction that explains itself. The artist does not work from a predetermined concept, but begins with a solid technical foundation and a deep familiarity with his materials. Much of his work emerges in the act of making – shaped by detours, failures and chance. At times, what doesn’t succeed becomes just as important as what ultimately stands.
Colour also plays a vital role in his work. Hovers has developed a personal palette that is immediately recognisable, though it's difficult to clearly define why exactly. He explores how colours interact, how contrasts can soften or sharpen. But no colour appears to have been chosen at random.
In the exhibition 'Spelend reizen' at Gallery Untitled, visitors will encounter well-known series such as his wooden tractors and skylines, alongside work that has not previously been shown. Together, these pieces reveal how Hovers continues to build a universe in which simplicity is not a limitation, but an invitation. He demonstrates that returning to the basics does not lead to emptiness, but instead to a world that invites us to look, to discover and to keep on playing.
