We live in an era where systems, protocols, and screens increasingly seem to have the final say. Gradually, another voice is being quieted: that of the human being—with all her doubts, intuition, and personal pace. ‘My Voice Went Soft’ is Te Poele’s plea for that voice. Not as a lament, but as a celebration: the work in this exhibition bursts with color, embraces playfulness, and radiates an almost irrepressible zest for life—a counter-voice that refuses to be drowned out.
Te Poele creates from a place of not-knowing. Her work is rooted in the conviction that the world is a magical, unfathomable place. She brings together diverse objects—ranging from museum artifacts to her own finds like fruit, branches, or a touch of glitter—shifting their meanings and creating space for something that defies immediate explanation.
She constructs her still lifes in the studio through a process she describes as a constant interplay between intuitive freedom and focused precision: starting out in a state of messy exploration, followed by a phase of slowing down, paring back, and rearranging until the image "feels right." She does not limit herself to merely collecting objects; increasingly, she fabricates the forms she needs herself. An element that begins as a sketch within a still life may later stand on its own, evolving into an independent spatial object—detached from the world where it originated.
For Te Poele, beauty is never an end in itself; she is actually wary of an image that is merely beautiful. What she truly seeks is that moment when a work unlocks something that could not have been conceived by the intellect alone. She employs aesthetics as a strategy rather than an end point: beauty draws the viewer in, after which layers unfold that may unsettle, shift perspectives, or evoke wonder. Philosopher Onno Zijlstra acknowledges this layering: in his book *Ongekend Herkenbaar* (Unfamiliarly Familiar)—which explores the meaning of art (ArtEZ Press, 2026)—he discusses Te Poele’s work *Potato* through the lens of Schopenhauer’s idea that art detaches an object from time, thereby elevating it to a representative of something greater—to the essence of the thing itself.
Louise te Poele is an internationally active visual artist, curator, and artist-educator. She initiated and curated *Standing on the Shoulders of Giants*—presented at the Saatchi Gallery in London in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum (2024) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (2025), with support from the Mondriaan Fund—and is currently working on a third edition in Finland. She previously realized *Concentric Spheres*, a participatory artwork located at the site of the former Groot Deunk asylum seeker center, with support from the Mondriaan Fund, the Province of Gelderland, and the Municipality of Aalten; she is currently working on *Raise Your Voice*, a mobile art and music project with De Niemanders that offers a safe space for female newcomers to make their voices heard.