Stream

A solo exhibition by Isabella Kuijers

Front Gallery: 03.12.26 - 14.01.27

Stream is letting myself be pulled along on this current of surprises;

a stream of consciousness noticing and digesting the changes.

A body being water.

Water breaking.

“In early 2026, I had a baby. People tried to explain what it would be like, but I couldn’t have been more surprised.

It’s easy to imagine the absence of what is old but hard to imagine what could be new. In Stream, I present images documenting and processing the romantic, granular micro-safari that is my life now: a volunteer pumpkin that a baby stuck the tip of a ballpoint pen into over and over again; a caterpillar rehomed from my rue onto a lemon tree; an unlucky rooster slaughtered in the back garden; a baby learning to blow out candles.

Things bubble up: terror and vulnerability (I must be water). I watch myself and my family becoming expansive and protective. The domesticity. The turning inwards. A quiet, secret, joyful life. But memory feels so faulty. I was once a baby - so distant as to be forgotten, as this will be.

Now I am replaying these scenes from a different vantage point. It’s so emotionally reflexive. A whirlpool. “Do you remember what he sounded like before he started talking?” Luckily, we have recordings. As for the drawings: there are no references, just imperfect memories. Created on an iPad that I can work on while he sleeps next to me - constraints that channel creativity.”