Eelco Hilgersom’s Habitat series pulses with the energy of nature reimagined through abstraction. Drawing from his early fascination with the structures of the natural world — spiraling shells, knotted roots, and intricate leaf veins — Hilgersom channels organic chaos into deliberate, mesmerizing forms. Born in Amsterdam, his work reflects a deep connection with natural design, merging intuition with craft. Each piece plays with opposing elements: softness and sharpness, flow and fixity, surrealism and familiarity. These tensions give his sculptures a strange vitality, as if they were caught in the act of becoming.
Constructed from thousands of colored lenses, the sculptures shimmer with motion, even when still. They catch light and twist it, creating subtle shifts in color and perspective that change depending on where you stand and how the light falls. These forms suggest creatures paused mid-movement, caught between growth and retreat, expansion and containment. They stretch, crawl, and bloom with an eerie grace, evoking something both terrestrial and otherworldly. The use of repetition and symmetry intensifies their strange beauty — each work seems engineered by evolution, though no known species could claim them.
The Habitat series thrives on versatility. Whether installed alone, in clusters, or sprawled across entire surfaces, each sculpture becomes part of its environment in unpredictable ways. The shifting light patterns they create can breathe life into a sterile room or soften the edges of a rigid structure. It’s this adaptability that elevates the pieces from static forms to living presences within space. Hilgersom’s work doesn’t just reflect the natural world — it reacts to it, shaping and being shaped by the places it inhabits.
More info: Website, Instagram.
