SHAPE: Marlou Breuls brings whimsy to TextielMuseum

Have a seat as we introduce the wonderfully creative Marlou Breuls, the visionary behind House of Rubber. With a playful glimmer in her eye and an infectious laugh, Marlou welcomes us into her world, where the lines between art and wearability joyfully blur. Her journey began in fashion and has since led her to extraordinary places, where she now creates everything from wobbly floor lamps to rubbery jewellery that droops from the wearer’s ears. Embracing a process that’s as intuitive as it is experimental, Marlou’s work celebrates spontaneous bursts of creativity over more rigid concepts!

This fall, she has been invited by the TextielMuseum to collaborate and engage in material-driven research with some playful serendipity on the side. In her sculptural approach, Marlou’s art comes to life in ways that are both provocative and deeply human. Her installation Lady in Rug, a 12m² hand-tufted carpet from which a breathing female form emerges, invites us to consider where the body ends and the object begins. Alongside other installations like The Rooom Divider (yes, you read that right—it’s three o’s!), Marlou invites us to explore her dreamy universe where her work doesn’t just sit still—it moves, breathes, and transforms!

Hey Marlou! How are you doing today? 
I’m doing good, I’m starting to get a bit nervous about the opening, but that’s normal, right? Besides that, everything’s fine. It’s nice weather and I have a day off!

Yes! It’s so beautiful. Could we begin by talking about your background in art, what was your first contact with it and how that relationship developed for you? 
I’ll just dive right in then, it’s my ninth year as an independent artist. I have a bit of an unconventional path because I started studying fashion at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute and graduated in 2016. At the time I wanted to make garments, but I also felt the need for it to be art. From that point on, I did a lot of independent work for Amsterdam Fashion Week, and a lot of collaborative work with theatres and companies. Although I love making wearable sculptural pieces, I realised that my excitement came from focusing on materials and how something moves. Not necessarily just on a body, but also on how it relates to space. That’s when I decided to rebrand to House of Rubber and research the balance between the human body and the sculptural elements present in materials. I concluded that I really like liquid materials, something that you can squeeze into a shape with a certain flexibility to it. I still draw inspiration from the female body but now create these feminine fun objects. It’s the best of both worlds.

Sounds perfect! I read somewhere that you have this playful optimistic philosophy that you apply to your work and I was wondering how you developed it?
I always struggled to come up with difficult concepts because that’s what we were taught in school. You learn how to tell a story, while I was good at it, I was missing my voice in the process. Running my own studio for years now, I came to the realisation that I just don’t work like that; I work on intuition. I’ll just get ideas walking through the city like can I make a head that bounces and doesn’t break and then you can throw it at people? Then I translated that into an art object that people relate to, basically implementing the fun I have coming up with these ideas into my work. That’s when I realised I wanted to be a designer who focuses on a relationship with objects that bring people joy.

I love how you put functionality on the back burner and allow yourself to focus purely on the emergence of joy!
Exactly, I usually make something first and then later think to myself it would be nice if it was functional too. I’ll make a cabinet, but then the combination of the materials makes it impractical but the idea was there haha.

Lovely! You’ve expressed before how you find your spark in humanising materials and objects, I was wondering what that process looks like for you? Like what you said about the bouncing head.
I’ve always had this fascination for the human body, especially the female body which is why I studied fashion. There’s something really interesting in making something tactile and inviting, something that you want to squeeze just like a little baby. With rubber, there is also this dimension that edges on grossness with this connotation of being very sexual and dirty. Finding this balance between extreme joy and tactility on one side and the other side having a horror edge by adding fingers, noses or limbs. That’s the ideal combination of what makes my work mine, this combination of weird with fun.

I believe your piece Lady in Rug, encapsulates that idea perfectly. I found it so captivating to look at. Is the woman captured? Is she emerging? Can you say a bit more about the inspiration behind it?
Of course, it was the first piece I made after rebranding! It was also a nod to my graduation collection from AMFI, which featured a huge Persian carpet transformed into a dress. For Lady in Rug, I was thinking about going in a new direction that invites people to question the role of wearability. I also wanted the piece to look alive by adding robotics and such. It was a symbolic closure of the fashion chapter of my life, because I still borrow a lot from it but in a more unique niche way.  A fun fact about tufting the piece is that it took me a total of two years to make it. I always come up with new ideas during these processes and then it inspire me to go in a new direction. When I was tufting I kept having all these thoughts about how to make a tufting machine that could shoot rubber and liquids. It’s always one big story that evolves into something else. Lady in Rug was like a confirmation of my vision and to trust the process and see what happens. 

That’s really nice, trusting your instinct like that, what you mentioned about wet, shiny appearances comes across in your work and if I’m not mistaken you started using recycled yarns because they’re also super shiny like that. How is sustainability involved in your creative process now? 
I developed it through working with the TextielMuseum, as an artist, I never really had such a strong focus on sustainability. I obviously keep it in mind while sourcing for Lady in Rug I only allowed myself a maximum of 50% new materials. When the opportunity came to work with the TextielMuseum, which has staff with professional knowledge of how to be sustainable, I wanted to challenge myself. I had all the tools I needed in order to make it sustainable. The best part is that I really like shiny plasticky-looking stuff and a lot of recycled materials are because it’s plastic. I wanted to inspire myself and other artists, to prove that you can create something beautiful even without new materials.

So nice that you took this opportunity and took the leap. You’re right. I bet that must have been the perfect environment to try it out for yourself.
Yeah, I do a lot of commissioned pieces and rubber is not always the best material to use for sustainability. Even though I don’t mass-produce anything, I still believe in being sustainable wherever you can—that’s like the future

Speaking of the future, you were talking about experimenting with different knitting techniques. I believe a 3D knitting machine was involved at some point. How do you see this technology playing a role in your work now? 
I’m very crafty and I love craftsmanship. Everything I do has hours and hours of work going into it. Now with 3D knitting machines, all of a sudden being able to see my idea come out of it was a really interesting process. The process of thinking of something and having it ready an hour later, was really insightful because I’m so used to taking my time and all the failure that comes along with that. This was a nice process of experimenting with many structures, like asking the machine to implement a human shape in a flat knit. I also had to tone down many of my ideas and make decisions which was quite challenging. In my studio, I’m used to going all the way but with the knitting machine, there is a limit. It was an interesting way to learn how to be selective.

That’s really cool, I was also wondering who you would say you design for? Do you have an specific audience in mind? 
For the TextielMuseum, I definitely had an audience in mind, they have such an interesting clientele in the museum. I used to go there when I was a kid and when I was doing my MBO in fashion. I knew to pitch ideas that are interesting for people who like really crazy, weird stuff. I pictured kids from the youngest age possible to grannies enjoying their day at the museum. Asking myself how I could connect those two worlds and I landed on something playful while still adding complexity in the structure and the knitting. I try to incorporate this element of fun and movement which creates its own story, and letting people to relate to it in their own way. Creating this more kinetic work has given me a wider audience than I normally have with my own pieces.

I totally get what you mean! Also, the rubber earrings you make have been on my mind ever since I saw them on your website. They really have this perfect mix of fun and mouvement to them!
Yeah! When you wear them they’re floppy cause they have this gemstone, which also adds shine.

Circling back can you say more about the work you’re going to be exhibiting at the TextielMuseum?
Of course, I have a piece called The Rooom Divider with three O’s, it looks like a typo, but it’s not. I wanted to give it a name that just makes sense and doesn’t refer to a million other things. As I worked on it, I decided to add a kinetic element to the piece so the knit material expands and contracts from about one meter to five. You can see the outline of two women in it and the whole piece is also built in an S shape so when it’s slowly moved by the motors it looks like they’re dancing. They’re very abstract, I would love for the women to be more present, but that was technically impossible.

Honestly, that sounds so beautiful. I really hope I get to see it. And that brings me to my last question: what is one takeaway you hope people will have from seeing your work? 
Like for one thing to stick with people? That’s hard. I think I’ve said this already but I hope people can see the joy of creation that went into making these pieces. For me, it’s never about the end result, but more about whether a piece can convey the amount of excitement the person had while making it. In school, you are taught to work with a concept that has to answer a lot of questions. It’s really all about listening to intuition and letting “the joy of making” speak to the people.

I feel like in a way that is a concept in itself, to just let the joy transpire and carry the message. That’s everything I had for today, thank you so much for chatting with me!

Of course, you’re welcome! Enjoy your day!

You too!