BIOGRAPHY
1982
-Interior Architecture Royal Academy, Ghent, Belgium.
-Travelled and worked throughout Italy.
-internship with architect Romano Antico, Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy
1986
-Renovating spaces to loft for Belgium author Dhr. Hugo Claus, Ghent, Belgium.
1991
-'Linea' Design fair, participated in cooperation with Cargo, Ghent, Belgium.
1993
-'Lenteselectie' ('Spring selections') VIZO, Brussel. VIZO= Belgian foundation which supports designers.
1994
-Visiting lecturer design, Higher Institute of Architecture 'De Bijloke', Ghent, Belgium.
1995
-'Triënale voor Vormgeving in Vlaanderen,' VIZO at Design Museum Ghent.
1998
-Opening exhibition at art gallery Sofie Lachaert, Antwerp, Belgium.
2000
-Nominated for, and realised sculpture project 'Wild Horses' for 'A. de Hollainhof', Ghent, Belgium
2003
-'Grand-Tour' exhibition at 'Museum Schone Kunsten'- Art museum, Ghent, Belgium.
-S.MA.K.- Museum of Modern Art- 'Open Ateliers à la carte', Ghent, Belgium.
2004
-'Fantasy Design'. Kids are shown how a designer works and have to try to develop a product on their own. Tutorial Project in cooperation with Design Museum Ghent.
2005
-Provincial Prize for Design 2004, selected.
Participant of the exhibition at the Caermers monastery in Ghent, Belgium.
2006
-Design Museum in Ghent bought 2 Wings lamps for their own collection.
-Selected by Philippe Starck to produce 6 Mussel Chandeliers en 3 Wings Chandeliers.
Intended for the Lan Club, an immense business club/ bar/lounge/restaurant in Beijing. The club comprises a complete floor of what used to be a shopping mall. The entire interior decoration was designed by Philippe Starck.
2007
-Cooperation with YOO, New- York.
YOO Ltd is a design focused property development company founded by designer
Philippe Starck, Jade Jagger and property developer John Hitchcox.
They fix up highly sophisticated lofts and resell them fully finished.
They ordered 2 Mussel Chandeliers and a Wings Chandelier for two apartments in their
project.
2008
-In Borek Sipek's Ajeto Glassworks, Czech Republic, I had several of my designs glass blown for me.
- 'Je suis Da Da', a travelling exhibition on Belgian designers whose works incorporate the highly typical Belgian Surrealism.
Starts in Turin, Italy and from there to several other venues in Europe.
Selected with my work the Mussel Chandelier.
Organised by Design Flanders.
2009
-The Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA, selected two works for its exhibition 'European Design since 1985'. It starts there in March 2009 and will tour in America en Asia.
It brings together some 250 European designers and thus gives an overview of what has been significant in that period until today.
Two works: Big Heart en Wings Floor Lamp were purchased for the exhibition and will become part of the museum's permanent collection.
-Participation in the exhibition 'Red Light Design Event" Milano 2009, which takes place during the Milan furniture fair in April 2009.
Exhibition theme: "The World's sexiest Design ever."
Selected with two works: The Kiss and the Mussel Chandelier.
Organised by Italian bathroom designer WET.
-'Je suis Da Da'a travelling exhibition on Surrealistic Belgian designers.
After de start in Turin, Italy, now shown in Brussels.
2010
-Participation at the Milan furniture fair with the exhibition:
'Je suis Da Da'
-"Let's Stick Together" exhibition in Istanbul with 93 participating designers.
Updated design of the walking stick.
-Le Royal Monceau, a grand hotel concern in Paris,
who ordered the Mussel Chandelier for their foyer.
2011.
-Last summer (2011) Maison Martin Margiela opened
a five star hotel in Paris, near the Champs-Elysées.
My work is represented in one of its rooms by two grey Wing's Lamps
-Participation at the exhibition 'Belgian Spirit' in Hong Kong.
Thirty Belgian designers, architects and fashion designers have been chosen to represent Belgium during the Business of Design Week in Hong Kong.
-Design Museum Gent, includes two white Wing's Lamps in their collection.
2012.
-Participation at the exhibition 'Hommage a Baudelaire'.
In celebration of 25 years existence of FOOTnoot Publishers, and 10 years of Gallery Baudelaire, Antwerp.
2013
Oeverture
A Design route along the Leie in the centre of Gent.
Work on display at Els Jacobs and Design Vlaanderen in the Miat.
2014
- Collaboration with gallery Recollection in Antwerp.
- Collaboration with gallery Amen in Paris
- Participation in the Pop-Up exhibition imPERFECTION in the heart of Gent
- Participation in the exhibition 'Les 3 poètes' in gallery Hangar 311, Mechelen.
2015
- Solo exhibition "There's a new light in town" in gallery Pont & Plas in the center of Gent, held over the festive season.
2019
-
Memento Mons nov. 2019- jan. 2020
“Cabinets of Curiositie”
Exhibition at the BAM museum Mons
Curated by Atelier Lachaert- Dhanis /LSD²
2020
-
My work is present in Atelier Lachaert- Dhanis in Tielrode, between Ghent and Antwerp
Nora De Rudder's Luminous Poetry
By Raoul Buyle,
ELLE Décoration
Sometimes the bourgeois, picturesque and prosperous provinces of Flandres still appear to be rough and cold. But do not be mistaken. The sumptuous city of Ghent is a sphinx. And Nora De Rudder is proud to belong to this land where yesterday's and tomorrow's creators possess absolute comprehension.
In Ghent there is a quality of creation that is correlated with the life of its inhabitants. ''No matter where you open a museum, it will always leave its stamp on its environment.", says Jan Hoet, former curator of Ghent's Museum of Modem Art. Add a few creators blessed with a strong personality and you will better understand the subtle art of living in this northern part of Belgium.
There's no doubt that Nora de Rudder, interior architect and designer, belongs to this movement. Her work shows traditional characteristics, but at the same time you notice the visionary power of the creators of her time. "Her time". Which time ? The time in which the concept alone isn't always enough to create an object. One also has to have the means. But these you can find : Traders who confide in Nora to decorate their restaurants or their shop-windows. You also find them in poetry, the starting point of Nora' s creative work. You only have to have a look at her lamps and you'll be convinced of that. There's one that is made with bird's wings that she gets from poulterers and other fowlers. There's a mobile made of shells. All her objects are inspired by nature. She rummages through all kinds of objects. She sucks out marrow to be left only with a carcass, which then serves as the body for one of her creations. Both doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde live within this frail young woman. She is timid, pale and fragile like the blond woman on a painting by Vermeer, but at the same time she is strong, constructive and warm-blooded like a South Italian woman. Her clear eyes fall upon these times with lots of benevolence. "I really feel a bond with the different cultures that surround me. In all my creations I try to express the link between the robust culture of our ancestors and the fragility of exotic cultures. I want to use forms, movements and material from nature." Her work is as a tribute to life, with its movements and its wild codes. Guided by chance and by an apparent unconstrainedness, Nora opens the way to an extremely original style. These objects, made by hand, confirm the great comeback of decorative art. She often refers to designers like Borek Sipek, André Dubreuil, Tom Dixon. With such a state of mind, can one be a designer? A contemporary designer? Absolutely. Have a look at her works and you'll be convinced that one can. Nora De Rudder is mostly known for her lamps.
Chandeliers and floor and table lamps where the lighting function takes nothing away from the aestheticism of her poetic approach. A floor lamp with a copper base and real wings of a goose that filter the light that impregnates the object with an elegant movement. Chandeliers with shells that diffuse their pearly luminosity through twisted post-modernist structures. There is also a "Chinese lantern" made out of an extremely thin woven bronze web. She has also designed a stool for a bar in Ghent, made out of mahogany and steel. Its form is the extension of the natural curves of the human body. The sitting body, the line of the back and the stool itself are one. It is a sort of tribute to "the sitting being". It was for this bar stool that Nora won an award at a competition organised by Fondexlor in Nancy (France).
When she decorates the window of a hat shop, she "sprinkles" it with very fine raindrops (glass and crystal pearls and tiny light bulbs), almost to remind us of the actual function of the hats sold. But with such a sense of poetry ! And while pure and solid design is not able to break loose from its progressive, praiseworthy but univocal creed, we almost have the great pre-war division: modernists engaged in the industrial mass production and artists-decorators, like Nora De Rudder, more attached to masterly made-to-measure objects.