Gallery
Here is my complete body of work
Paintings in chronological order of creation
Art is subjective. Although, art criticism sets out to interpret and comprehend human actions and ascribe meaning to them, by using scientific analytical tools
to study artistic works in a wider intellectual and social context; that statement remains largely true. So you, dear visitor, are free to experience the artworks as you wish and bring yourself into their meaning.
I have however, in the name of providing more fodder for examining the values connected to my artistic choices and to stimulate conversation, have added a short text next to each one of the pieces. Describing my thoughts and feelings while creating them. Feel free to do what you will. I hope you enjoy this tour!
Breathe.
This little one deals with a moment of hesitation, trepidation, insecurity, doubt. A meditation for those so unequipped with calm. How could you breathe, deeply and truly, in the midst of it all?!
Status: Available For Sale
September, 2019
come sit with me, let's have a cup of tea.
Sometimes I feel like I’m standing on a ledge. My toes wiggle around and sense the empty space underneath them. There is a cold draft; a whirlwind pushing me back and grabbing on to me at the same time. It’s not a particularly fun or pleasant place to be at.
It is vast and awesome. But not somewhere you’d feel comfortable lingering in for long.
No! A cup of tea with a friend sounds much better.
Status: Commissioned Work, Sold
September, 2019
Portrait of a friend
Inspired by the wonderful mind of a friend whose home this piece is currently hanging in.
Status: Commissioned Work, Sold
December, 2019
blinking abyss
“There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us, you blinked.” Batman utters to another version of himself during the final battle of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.
I know! I know! the superhero comic industry doesn’t usually appear next to fine art, but hear me out: What if it did and helped us overthink everything?!
This concept is famously based on Nietzsche’s remarks about the abyss in Beyond Good and Evil:
“Beware that when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster…for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
What man is to do?! When those terrible eyes find them? Could the eye see how small we are, how helpless? Would we chose to stay and watch? There is peace and content in surrender, but if we chose to remain in the eye of storm do we not lose the chance to dance with the wind? To be inside, instead of forever gazing outward/inward. To participate, even if for a short while. What man is to do when the universe blinks?
Status: Sold
March, 2020
I have been here before.
Struggle, is the word that comes to mind when I’m…well, describing my mind and its inner mechanics. It’s reminiscent of the Sisyphus story. Not in a sense that the constant push and pull feels like a punishment, though at times it does, but the repetitiveness is what wears me down.
Climbing what seems like an endless mountainous terrain, only to blink and find yourself at the beginning of a path once again. It makes the small victories and the joyous moments, fleeting. Dusted in fear. Because there is always a terrified voice in the back of your mind that tells you, soon the lights will go off and we must start again. And again. And again. And again.
Realising the journey, this particular journey, might truly be all that there is to it, or ever will be, isn’t easy. After all that thought itself could be a trick of a frustrated lonely mind. From where do you find the energy to move when moving seems doomed and standing still is unbearable?! How do you take the next step?
Status: Available For Sale
April, 2020
Journey
It is strange to possess a body. Is it not?! To ride this corporal entity and to breathe and to touch and to sense everything with it. Blood, guts, bones, skin, and all.
How fragile it is, and how strangely resilient. The way it responds profoundly to the soul?! Or self?! What do we call those other parts we can’t see?! The parts that make us sick or keep us alive. Not just alive, as in if I cut this hair covered epidermis layer, down to the connective tissue, fat, cells, and blood vessels I could somehow see that this body lives; but alive, as in present. As in something other than bone living in here. How could you tell?
There is not enough body, or too much for all these feelings. The never-ending contemplation. Look within, be here, they say! Why does it feel like a glove that never fits? You’re either floating above it trying to find a way in, or buried deep inside. And it changes, constantly. Unfailingly. Grows, shrinks, stretches, dies. Always in the process of dying. Such splendid nightmare.
Status: Available For Sale
May, 2020
Plasma
No moment is like the next or the one before it. And I don’t just mean that in a philosophical sense, but also in a measurable physical way. Temperature, pressure, matter, and so on constantly change. Evolve. Regress. Expand.
The entropy increases.
It is hilariously cruel that the state we know so little about is the one making up almost the entirety of our universe. The popular perception is that remaining still is achievable and even desired. That we have begun from something solid and become another solid thing at the presumed end of our journey. That transition is temporary and must conclude some day.
Thinking in motion is difficult and unsettling. Because there is nothing to reach for, nowhere to be but on the way. Nothing solid to grab onto.
Nothing but other changing agents I suppose. You can count on them to always be there. Beautifully vibrant and everlasting with all their terrifyingly vast range of possibilities.
Status: Available For Sale
July, 2020
Do you feel safe?
I think that’s a question which has increasingly taken centre stage. What does it take to be safe? what does it take to not just be but FEEL safe? How much are we willing to compromise on our individual and collective boundaries to get ever closer to this elusive vague notion? How much are we willing to pay?
In this quest within the sociopolitical settings that engineer and actively harbour scarcity, “the other” becomes the biggest source of threat. We are encouraged to project our fears and resentments onto this “other”. You yourself can easily become othered, in this ever shrinking space of what is an acceptable existence. The logical conclusion of systemic othering is nothingness.
The result is becoming afraid of yourself. Self destruction, which then faced with our instinct for self preservation, turns into hatred of all who resemble the thing we were made to fear. The tragic irony of it all, is that in the confusing despair we lose sight of how manufactured this state is, and therefore how it can be…well, othered.
What would it be like to make the community a liberating praxis?! To consciously and actively choose each other? After all, in this strange indifferent universe, no arms are extended to receive us but the embrace of others who share the same burden of existence.
Status: Available For Sale
December, 2020
in search of peace
A young engineer from Amstelveen commissioned this piece. She was looking for something that would resemble serenity and peace.
I think we all have certain colours or imagery we associate with our various feelings. It is those differences which transform the traditional client/business relationship into a collaborative experience. I enjoy making art for others as much as I do making it solely to my own image. It is wonderful to approach it as a means of communication.
On this occasion, the vibrant blues and central reds matched beautifully to bring a pop of colour into her home and connect to the desired theme.
Status: Commissioned Work, Sold
January, 2021
a good morning
The idea of finding the “silver lining” had been on my mind quite often, leading up to making this piece. I cannot say that I’ve been successful in my quest so far. One of the things that I often struggle with is approaching situations in a neutral mindset, let alone positively. And not being able to achieve that positive outlook, the lightness in handling perceived obstacles, bothers me on top of the other things I might be feeling on those difficult days. A double bind!
Then, I started thinking perhaps looking for ways out, that lighter spot in the sea of morphing shadows, might just be good enough. Regardless of whether you’d succeed in getting out, the act of trying and moving, the trust that an out does exist, is comforting in its own right. The shame of failure need not be a factor, if failing itself is no longer a possibility. So, it is perhaps always a good morning!
Status: Commissioned Work, Sold
March, 2021
het Hofje
A much beloved oma lived here. She took walks around the house, fed the chickens, tended to her garden, made coffee, and greeted children and grandchildren on many Saturday mornings.
An oma whose warmth and elegant disposition very much reminded me of my own grandmother. I did my best to bring out that very essence in this small piece.
Status: Commissioned Work, Sold
September, 2021
