QUEEN OF CANDY FLOSS
“Like sugar crystallizing into stone. Life’s transformation, gradually shown.” Martijntje Cornelia
At the beginning of every work by Martijntje Cornelia lies a moment of enchantment: an impossibly light cloud of candy floss that seems to hover between presence and disappearance. This sense of magic fleeting, delicate and slightly surreal – is the foundation of her practice. It is why she has come to be known as the Queen of Candy Floss: an artist who has dedicated herself to a material that refuses to behave, resists predictability and transforms the very moment you meet it.
Candy floss appears innocent and sweet, yet its behavior is far from gentle. As soon as it encounters the world, it reacts: collapsing, sticking, crystallising or hardening into mineral-like formations. What begins as a soft, airy cloud becomes something unexpectedly raw, somewhere between sugar, stone and memory.
Cornelia embraces this instability. For her, the material’s transformations mirror the rhythms of life: fragile moments, sticky phases, abrupt shifts and the emergence of new forms. She finds beauty in the imperfect and the uncontrollable, in the tension between magic and matter, softness and structure.
Fragments from older works are preserved, allowing each new piece to hold traces of its past. Nothing is wasted; every transformation contributes to the next.
Through sculptures, wall pieces, wearable objects and installations, Cornelia invites viewers into the moment where sweetness becomes structure, where the ephemeral cloud gains weight, resilience and form.
Ultimately, her practice searches for the place where magic and material meet: a transformation that cannot be stopped, only witnessed, and whose final shape carries the memory of its beginning.
“The ephemeral clouds of sugar transform into luscious sweet rocks.”
Her work is included in the permanent collection of:
LAM museum. Sugar Woman, Forever Me, 2022
Museum Vlaardingen. Sweet Shocking Pink Bust, nr.1 Agneta van Reeuwijk, 2024