Bench Players

Bench Players is a book of animals that Rop van Mierlo drew or painted and then set aside: the failed, rejected and unused ones from his archive, kept on the bench.

Nieves published the 28-page color offset book in 2021, in collaboration with do you read me?!, and announced a launch at Reference Festival in Berlin. The publisher lists the print edition as sold out and sells a digital download.

Van Mierlo works in several media and usually starts from drawings or paintings. He describes control, and its absence, as central to his work, and he paints animals in wet-on-wet, an interest tied to the human urge to control nature. He is best known for the picture book Wild Animals, which won a Dutch Design Award in 2011. He studied at Design Academy Eindhoven, graduating in 2008, lives and works in Amsterdam, and has worked with Hermès, Marni, Head Porter and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.