Driving through the industrial outskirts of Antwerp, a quiet gate opens at the end of the road. Behind it lies a warehouse transformed into an artist’s studio. The air carries the sharp scent of cut steel and the cool dust of marble—this is the world of Belgian artist and designer Ben Storms.
In a wooden crate, a new work lies still. From afar, it resembles a massive, unyielding rock; only on touch does its lightness reveal itself—a mere 4-millimeter stone shell stretched over a hollow metal frame. Its surface, patterned with hand-hammered mosaics and bound with resin, holds a paradox: a “fractured wholeness.”This is an alchemical ground for materials, a laboratory of optical deception.“By creating impossible forms, I want to unsettle people, to throw them off balance for a moment,” Ben explains. “It’s a way to make them see the ordinary with new eyes.”
The “impossible” emerges from his experiments with matter. In the center of the studio, steel sheets are pressed against stone molds. With a sudden burst of air, the cold metal expands and swells like something alive, taking shapes that seem to hover between a cushion and a cloud. The finished sculptures, in stainless steel, rise in the room like silent guardians, reflecting every flicker of light around them.
Where others see metal only as strong and permanent, Ben imagines it as soft, even fragile. “Force is like a third hand in my work—it lets steel shift between strength and gentleness, challenging the way we normally think of it.”
