Ad Arma

Ad Arma, the pseudonym of Ad Robert Meerman (Rotterdam, July 23, 1954), is a Dutch sculptor, graphic artist, painter, and glass artist. In his early career, he worked under the name ARM. Ad Arma is Latin for “to arms” or “into battle.”

Life and Work Arma became interested in art as a child through reading books and through a brother at his boarding school who hammered copper objects. He studied at Artibus, the Utrecht School of the Arts (1974–1979). He creates gouaches, oil paintings, prints (etchings), and three-dimensional works such as bronze and ceramic sculptures and glass objects. His early sculptures are robust, while his later works are much more slender. Asia plays an important role in his work. For seventeen years, he collaborated with the Japanese artist Jiro Inagaki in the Netherlands and Japan. In his paintings, he draws inspiration from his travels to Japan, India, Nepal, and other countries in Asia, as well as from his 2008 trip to Spitsbergen.