START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists

Unlike some of her classmates from the progressive Art & Science studio at the academy in Den Haag, Nicky Assmann does not find fulfillment in overly technical complexity, instead she takes the way of the seemingly simple yet all the more compelling abstract communication. From soapy water, which we well know from blowing bubbles as children, she creates a formally simple, yet impressive spectacle: in a carefully lit theatre space two gigantic mirror-like membranes are lifted up alternatively by a couple of thin rods, their inner tension is clearly visible in fantastic rainbow reflections while they also reflect the breathless audience in grotesquely distorted forms. The inevitable sudden collapse and disappearing of the unstable surface creates an unexpected effect of genuine awe in the presence of beauty and transience. (pv)