Guido Geelen mostly works in clay, but also in bronze, aluminium and wood. Classical materials that demand traditional techniques, but this 'image maker', as he prefers to be called, knows how to raise the bar for the application of this material. Take that bunch of gladiolus, for example, that was shown in the exhibition 'Bloemenpracht bij MIJ'. The gutters of the casting mold for this vase were filled with liquid aluminium during the manufacturing process. This solidified gilded residual space has become an inseparable part of the overall picture. Here we touch the core of his practice: figuration combined with abstraction, chaos hand in hand with order.
After the teacher training TeHaTex Teacher Training College, Geelen followed a course at the Academy for Visual Education, both in Tilburg. The artist still lives and works here. He was awarded the Charlotte Köhler Prize for sculpture in 1989 and the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for the innovative application of the traditional clay material in 2000. The work of Geelen has been acquired by, among others, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo, De Pont in Tilburg and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.