The work of artist Isa van Lier (Amsterdam, 1996) radiates the lightness of a dream world. With her seemingly playful ceramic sculptures, she builds temples designed for quiet retreat. In her latest installation, Lumina, she takes you on a sensory journey from darkness to light. Free from the distractions of the outside world, the work invites you to pause and reflect on your inner energy and the often-forgotten magic of existence.
Isa van Lier, Len Tempel, 2022, foto Levien Lockefeer
With Lumina—meaning both light source and opening—Van Lier builds on her acclaimed Len Temple, created in 2022 for the outdoor exhibition Paradys in Oranjewoud, Friesland. The new work, developed especially for the exhibition at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, continues her dream of building “temples” around the world—spaces where visitors can come to rest, even if only briefly. In the five-metre-high Len Temple, shaped like an egg, she installed various ceramic works. Visitors could dwell for a moment in this ‘dreamed paradise’ and leave feeling either uplifted or deeply moved.
In Lumina, Van Lier explores what it means to be truly awake—not just physically, but also mentally and spiritually. “Our consciousness is like a lighthouse casting its beam into the darkness,” she says. “But what lies beyond the light? And who are we when we close our eyes?”
Isa van Lier, Lumina, 2025
Together with a group of volunteers, she has spent months working almost non-stop in her studio, creating hundreds of ceramic sculptures for Lumina. “It’s a beautiful process to share,” says Van Lier. “Every day, the thirty handmade moulds need to be filled and emptied again, and I’m constantly hauling buckets of clay around.”
The thousand small beings that will soon inhabit Lumina are carriers of light, symbolising the inner source that exists within every living creature—a small sun that flares up at birth and slowly fades at life’s end.
Inspiration from Japanese Culture
Van Lier draws much of her inspiration from her time in Japan in 2019, where she encountered Zen Buddhism and Shinto animism. The belief that everything is alive and ensouled runs deep in Japanese culture. Through small gestures—such as painting tiny faces—Van Lier brings her materials, whether clay or wood, to life. With careful attention to detail and by viewing the world as if everything were alive, she believes the world could become more conscious and kind. Lumina plants yet another seed—an invitation to dream of a different, possible world, and a reminder that such a world can indeed exist.
Isa van Lier in haar atelier, 2025
Biography
Isa van Lier graduated in 2020 from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Within just two years, she made her mark with distinctive, vibrant works. In addition to Len Temple, she created a meandering path of brightly coloured stones for Kunsthal Rotterdam (2022), and her sculptures have populated the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam. In 2024, she co-curated the group exhibition Pulling Strings with artist friends at Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam.
Emerging Talent
Each year, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam invites two emerging artists to create new work for its attic galleries. Since the 1950s, the museum has focused on “living artists,” supporting the development of new talent in the visual arts—from the Cobra movement, which once revolutionised Dutch modern art and shaped the museum’s renowned Cobra collection, to today’s new generation.
Lumina has been made possible with support from the Mondriaan Fund.