Mandy den Elzen is a visual artist who approaches materials with a scientific and meticulous approach. Working with special left over animal parts, den Elzen looks to expand the number of animal parts that can be tanned and used for leather, thus making better use of available resources. Her work questions society’s attitudes towards the use of animal parts in our every day world and within the leather production industry in particular.
Her material explorations with leather include:
Bull ball leather: Why should you sew 3D shapes in leather as it already exists in nature? These beautiful leather pouches are made of bull balls – a surprisingly thick and strong leather which can be formed because of its shape into beautiful, design and fashion-like sculptures.
Cattle stomach: Textured and grooved because of the ridges of the smooth muscle pillars and papillae formation that line the stomach walls. The interior surface of the stomach forms numerous folds and papillae, which vary in shape and size from short and dense to longer and rounded.
Horse caecum: In this series, den Elzen works specifically with the caecum of a horse. Within the surface of caecum, oblong muscular fibres are collected into four bands – these bands make four rows of sacculations.