Nick Renshaw - Visual Artist

Explorer is a work commissioned by the local authority of Veendam, a town in the north of the Netherlands. The work consists of three individual pieces and is made for both the interior and exterior public spaces of the recently redesigned and expanded primary school in the town, Basisschool De Braskorf. The town itself, as well as this part of the country in general has a particularly strong historical connection to some of the earliest sea faring explorations from the Netherlands. As such the various elements of the works made for the school make a direct association between this very important and fundamental background and the nature of the school as educational centre in which each student can be understood to embark on their own passage of discovery. The works include a monumental sculpture adjacent to the school building outside which depicts a figure seemingly prepared for a future journey. Inside the school itself are two works, one a life size portrait of one of the students attending the school at the time the commission was undertaken, the other a vitrine installation.