Ruan hoffmann biography of williams

Collector, painter, ceramicist, printer… accustomed to juggling different media, Ruan Hoffmann adapted easily enough to splitting his life between two apartments in Amsterdam’s museum district – except, he reports, where it compelled him to cut down on the clutter.

But, though the set-up may have put paid to his more maximalist excesses, the dish-designer’s art-filled apartments are nonetheless still liable to hypnotise.

 

A little over a decade ago, artist Ruan Hoffmann, then living in Johannesburg, filled a container with things dear to him – chiefly his library of books and collection of art – and dispatched it to Amsterdam.

Now firmly established in the Dutch port city, where for the past eight years he has lived and worked at the same address, Hoffmann is yet to unpack his container. His South African life, its physical traces at least, remain mostly in storage.

‘I don’t have much space,’ says Hoffmann