Like a bowerbird, Hanneke de Bruin collects objects, big and small, from her surroundings and drags them back to her studio to transform them into sculptures. Branches, stones, shells, fossils, but also rusted iron and sometimes even colorful plastic waste are cast in a thick layer of plaster. Next, the plaster is partially cut away around the enclosed object. More often the objects from nature only serve as inspiration for a new form in plaster.
Hanneke cuts directly into the raw material rather than creating a model first. This sculptural method is called 'taille direct'. She cuts and sands endlessly until the desired shape is created.

In her work, natural beauty and personal emotion are brought together in a form that seems to arise by chance. But is always a combination of raw strength and soft tenderness. The final sculptural form has extremes in angularity and fluid lines that flow into each other in an natural way. In her work Hanneke searches for the thin line between balance and imbalance. She believes in the power of simplicity.