News Projects
Projects
Alongside my series I work on projects: installations, commissions and work for exhibitions and art routes, often around a single theme or question. A selection of projects from recent years.
Fly Fly Butterfly
2019 – 2024 · Open Stal art route, Oldeberkoop. An installation of cabbage white butterflies that died a natural death in the breeding unit of the Dutch Butterfly Conservation. Under a mosquito net, in the seclusion of a box bed, they hang still and fragile in transparent bubbles, swaying only with your breath. A short life, an elusive dream. Shown earlier at Kunsthuis Wijchen and during Feest van Licht at Museumpark Oriëntalis (2020), and in 2024 at Open Stal, themed Dreamland. See also Vlindertuin.
In Nomine Dei
2024 · Museum Tweestromenland. Deviating from the norm, especially in gender or sexual orientation, is often a reason for discrimination and persecution. In most religions women play a subordinate role, justified by God’s will: in fact it is the woman who is nailed to the cross. Commissioned by Museum Tweestromenland in Beneden-Leeuwen, where the work was shown for a year in the exhibition Metamorfose 2024.
Coral Rings
2024 · Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam. Something about vanity and decline. A series of rings in bioplastic (PLA), inspired by fragile coral structures, and so delicate that you cannot wear them for long. They are a reminder of the vulnerability of the coral reef, our ecosystem and the plastic soup in the oceans. See also Koraalring II and Koraalring III.
Circle of Life (Climate Cube)
2022. A cube about climate change. Four flower hearts in acrylic blocks stand for fragile life; every side shows a different image. There is continuity (diversity), transition (successive circles) and absolute nothingness (transparency), in which everything seems to have literally dissolved. Related: Dandelion, about the dandelion and the beauty of every stage of life.
Mr. Hush
2021. Leafing through an old family album, I noticed a man I did not know. He turned out to be a lodger of my grandmother’s unmarried sister; she cooked for him and, rumour had it, even washed him. Everything about the man in the photo seemed symbolic, every attribute a silent witness to his existence. He had no relatives and was given a municipal funeral. His name was Zwijg (Hush).
Seas of Heaven
2020 · Rietveld Pavilion, Amersfoort. My dystopian vision of the future, as a slightly unsettling dreamscape: at first sight nothing is wrong, but then you notice embryos growing in a shell, and a man and woman about to make love who are not logged in. Submerged as if in formaldehyde. Made for De zielenroerselen van de kunstenaar, with 31 artists responding to a quote by Gerrit Rietveld. See also Seas of Heaven - love.
SEEDS (Honesty)
2020 · Meise Botanic Garden. A spatial drawing made with a 3D pen, with painted paper and stone (approx. 85 x 50 x 40 cm). In Dutch the honesty plant is called judaspenning, after its seed pods that look like coins: legend has it that Judas’ silver pieces fell beneath his gallows, and the plant grew from them. Shown at Natura Inspiratus in Meise Botanic Garden, at Bouchout Castle.
Mandala of medicines
2019 · Het Oude Land pharmacy. Medication or meditation? A mandala of pills in blister packs, made from medicine waste returned to the pharmacy (70 x 70 cm). Commissioned by Het Oude Land pharmacy in ’s-Gravenzande for its 50th anniversary; its founding year, 69, sits as a yin-yang in the centre. Part of my project on medicine and malleability, like the Rosary.
The Anatomy Lesson [Rembrandt revisited]
2018. Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, with Barbie on the dissecting table. As a real woman, the classic 1959 Barbie would have been biologically impossible: too little room for her organs, feet that could not carry her. Shown in the exhibition Lichaam en Geest (Body and Mind) at Rozet, Arnhem. From the same series: Everytime I think of you.
Walk of Waste
2018 · Waalkade, Nijmegen. For the Walk of Waste by Plastic Soup Nijmegen, during Nijmegen European Green Capital 2018, I designed an art bin along the Waalkade: You Cannot Swim Forever. About plastic in the oceans, and about malleability: precisely because everything seems makeable, we shrug our shoulders. The image came from an old Subhumans punk song, Us Fish Must Swim Together; singer Dick Lucas gave permission to use his lyrics.
DWAAL (Wander)
2018 · Mariken year, Nijmegen. A plea for confusion. For the 500th anniversary of Mariken van Nieumeghen I made a map of Nijmegen, my home town: a safe place where I know every street corner, but which can suddenly become unrecognisable. Collage with epoxy, 90 x 90 cm. Shown at New Dutch in the Marikenstraat and at the final exhibition in the Mariënburg chapel. See also Mariken.
Eternal Dance
2018. “The truth is never black or white.” To me black and white are not colours; they hold the entire spectrum: without black no depth, without white no light. They are easily reversed without losing any of their power, and so reflect the eternal dance of life. The series was reviewed by LensCulture in 2019 and appeared in 2021 as the art zine Eternal Dance.
Native Soil
2017 – 2020. The moulded human: the difference between reality and the image in our heads. A group of works within my work on malleability. Shown at Nijmegen City Hall (Mariken year 2018) and at Emonszaak. See also Geboortegrond, Man II.
