Meet the Artist Making Shippable Murals
MILAN — Los Angeles-based, Belgian sculptural artist Katrien Van der Schueren has a knack for infusing grandeur into residential spaces. With her abstract forms that sometimes call to mind ancient and tribal techniques, she has pushed boundaries over the years with her temple-worthy doors, walls and columns for luxury homes — from Beverly Hills to the Hamptons.
The artist, who moved to the U.S. 22 years ago, said in an interview that this chapter of her career involves making her murals easily transportable. Rising 20 to 40 feet, this is no easy feat, she said. She chisels, molds and colors her “shippable murals” on scaffolding in her North la Brea warehouse studio, in an enclave nestled between West Hollywood and Hancock Park.
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Van der Schueren made her first mural in 2019, while working on the decor for one of the world’s finest Mediterranean seafood restaurants, the Estiatorio Milos at the Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos. It was then she was also asked to enhance the resort’s spa with a mural.
“They wanted to do a huge wall mural, a sculpted mural. It was 40 feet by 20 feet and I basically figured out how to sculpt directly on the wall. I loved it so much. And I knew that I wanted to continue,” she said, noting that in the past she has also worked on residential projects in Kuaui, Hawaii, and Mexico. All of these projects required the transport of her own materials and mixing clay on location.
Today, her preferred media are concrete, wood, bio-resin, and hemp clay, all of which she mixes and matches to create a visual dialogue. In particular she works with a lightweight, regenerative hardwood called palowinia, which she sources through a partnership with an organization called World Tree.
“It does all kinds of good things for the soil and everything so it’s the most eco-friendly wood that is available. It’s also very lightweight and this means that, contrary to making a mural in ceramics, for example, it’s not breakable and it’s lighter weight,” she explained.
Last year, for a residence in Miami, she sculpted an 11-by-16-foot wall in shades of blue, metallic brown and earth tones that came together in a melodic harmony of rhythm and shapes. In other works, a ceiling crafted with chiseled liquid metal fashions a galaxy over a bar setting, while her plaster bas relief for designer Lisa Perry’s Onna House, a 1960s East Hampton home that showcases the work of female artists, infuses a sense of monochrome calm.
Her murals have been incorporated into the visions of interior designers like Ryan Saghian, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Lonni Paul, studio AKA Interiors, Gavin Brodin Design and Nicole Hollis. Van der Schueren has also worked with art consultant Jessica Chestman.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which drove decor and furnishings sector sales as consumers focused on their living spaces, helped Van der Schueren’s business as well. Her work was sought out by clients purchasing second homes in search of peace and calm.
“For the longest time, people saw murals as something that could be done in hotels… I’m even making murals for everything from entry spaces to powder rooms right now,” she said, adding that her work ranges from contemporary to abstract and to something plucked from a ziggurat, and often incorporates masculine Brutalism. Midcentury artist Costantino Nivola’s sand-casting technique, with which he enhanced the interior of the New York showroom of Italian computers to typewriter company Olivetti, was a major inspiration.
Crated at the end of the 1950s, it was a testament to the harmony between architecture, sculpture and technological influences.
“It has such a dramatic effect when it’s on a large scale… it becomes part of the architecture really,” she enthused.
In terms of pricing, Van der Schueren thinks her pieces are affordable “considering the impact they have” and vary between $600 and $1,800 per square foot.
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