Nicolette Bénard

Nicolette Bénard is a Dutch sculptural artist who explores identity, beauty and the tension between what we reveal and what we keep hidden.

Her handmade wall sculptures bring together the human figure, unexpected materials and clear plexiglass. Enclosed within the plexiglass, the forms seem to float: visible from every angle, yet somehow out of reach. Familiar details invite a closer look and reveal something less certain beneath the surface.

In The Veiled Self, the face disappears while the body remains, raising a quiet question about how we recognize ourselves and others. In Bloom in Disguise, flowers take on sculptural, almost stone-like forms, while a figure emerges through posture and gesture. Across her work, Bénard captures a moment of beauty and holds it still.

Trained as a goldsmith at Vakschool Schoonhoven, she brings precision and attention to detail to every sculpture. Each piece contains a genuine freshwater pearl: her discreet signature and a tribute to her mother, who never left the house without her pearls.

Her work invites us to look again. What first appears playful or familiar may hold something more personal beneath it.

Nicolette Bénard is a Dutch sculptural artist whose work investigates how identity is shaped and projected through cultural icons.

Trained as a goldsmith at Vakschool Schoonhoven, she approaches sculpture with a strong awareness of material, precision and finish. Refinement is not decorative but structural to her practice.

Her work originated from observing the persistence of the icon, images that remain unchanged while the world around them shifts. What interests her is not the object itself, but the ideal it carries.

In her so-called art icon objects, familiar forms are recontextualised and reduced to fragments. The legs remain only as archetype, carriers of posture, projection and expectation. Detached from their original meaning, they become sculptural elements within a broader inquiry.

In the ongoing series The Veiled Self, the human face, our primary marker of individuality, disappears beneath subtle, veil-like structures. Sculptural forms take its place, enclosed in plexiglass. The body remains, yet the person recedes.

The works explore identity, projection and containment, as transparency create both exposure and boundary. What appears visible is quietly layered and partially concealed.

Her work has been presented int...

2026
Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam(NL)
Affordable Art Fair, Brussels (BE)
2025–2026
MPV Gallery, Oisterwijk (NL)
­Moya Museum, Oisterwijk (NL)
2025
PAN Amsterdam (NL)
Affordable Art Fair, Hamburg (DE)
Affordable Art Fair, Berlin (DE)
Affordable Art Fair, Vienna (AT)
Affordable Art Fair, Brussels (BE)
Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam (NL)
Galerie Nassau 42, Antwerp (BE)
2024
Galerie Bettina von Arnim, Paris (FR)
Galerie Nassau 42, Antwerp (BE)
Affordable Art Fair, Hamburg (DE)
Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam (NL)
Affordable Art Fair, Brussels (BE)
2023
Whatz Art Fair, Singapore (SG)
Affordable Art Fair, Singapore (SG)
Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam (NL)
Art The Hague (NL)
Affordable Art Fair, New York (USA)
Whatz Art Fair, Taipei (TW)
Art Palm Beach, Florida (USA)
Galerie Bettina von Arnim, Paris (FR)
Galerie Caractère, Neuchâtel (CH)
Galerie Nassau 42, Antwerp (BE)
2022
CONTEXT Art Miami (USA)
Affordable Art Fair, Hamburg (DE)
Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam (NL)
Affordable Art Fair, Brussels (BE)
Affordable Art Fair, New York (USA)
Art The Hague (NL)
KunstRAI, Amsterdam (NL)
North Sea Jazz Festival (NL)
The HUB 2.0, Amsterdam Fashion Week (NL)
Gender Project, Berlin (DE)
2021
CONTEXT Art Miami (USA)
Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam (NL...