Silent Tulip
Contemporary porcelain vase
Title: Silent Tulip Designer: Pascale De Backer Year: 2019 Material: White porcelain
Colour: Pure white Dimensions: H 28 cm × Ø 18 cm Finish: Matte exterior, glossy interior Photography: Alberto Riccardo Messaggi Production: Handmade Limited Edition by Stockmans Porselein Belgium Authentication: Each piece is signed by the artist Pascale De Backer and marked with the progressive edition number and Stockmans Porselein Belgium stamp. Each work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist, including the corresponding edition number.
Silent Tulip is a pure white porcelain vase in the shape of a tulip.
The fragile, white flower's impalpability gives a new meaning to the importance of silence, purity, and essentiality in our lives, where a chaotic and insensitive world is shutting down any attempts at spirituality.
Silent Tulip has been developed as an organic form inspired by Nature. Every single tulip is slightly different, as every flower is unique in Nature.
I wanted to infuse this design with my feelings about a flower, so what stands before your eyes is not simply a realistic tulip, but rather a reflection of my perception of a flower.
I chose porcelain because it is the natural material that best reflects a flower's fragility and the delicacy of its petals. Porcelain is white and white is pure and silent: the essence of what I wished to reflect in this too chaotic, coloured and noisy world. I chose to use only white because a non-colour is stronger and more visible. I wanted to make the invisible visible again.
The interior is glossy, reflective like a water surface. Like a wound, like the inside of our own flesh. Like a primordial origin of the world. By contrast, the exterior is matte, non-reflective and sober. I wanted to create a dialogue between the visible and the invisible, the hidden and the revealed, the vulnerable and the protected, the soul and the body.
The creation of Silent Tulip was an intense exploration of porcelain as a material. Developing an organic tulip form in porcelain was a technical challenge, as porcelain has a high shrinkage factor of approximately 17%.
The final result could never be fully predicted before firing. Each piece undergoes a transformation during the production process, making every vase subtly unique.
Porcelain combines fragility with durability and water resistance, making it the ideal material to express the vulnerability of a flower while preserving the permanence of the object.
Silent Tulip was produced in collaboration with Piet Stockmans. Working with Piet Stockmans has been an enriching experience and a collaboration I will never forget.
Silent Tulip invites the viewer to perceive an extremely fragile and precious essence made of a metaphysical white that is subtly different from the white we normally experience. My aim was to evoke a feeling of purity, fragility, and quietness, and reproduce the imperceptible breathing movement of a flower in the wind.
I deeply miss poetry in today’s world, and I wish to make the world resonate with it again.
With Silent Tulip, I wanted to capture the slow-motion movement of the wind in the flower fields. I wanted to show the fragility and beauty of a single flower. I wanted to make a poem in the shape of a tulip. I hope to reconnect people with Nature, and encourage them to notice again the small, invisible things that quietly surround us.
Silent Tulip, Selected Exhibitions, Museum Collections, Awards, & Collaborations:
2021 Milan Design Week, 1000 Vases, Superstudio Più, Via Tortona 27, Milan, Italy
2019 De Vuyst Art Gallery, Icons Design Collection, Lokeren, Belgium