What, Why, How

1. Video: This description is about a video I made several years ago. The video lasts a little over 2 minutes. In the video you can see a human figure from behind, dressed completely in black and standing in the centre of the frame in a wide-shot. The location is at a sandy beach, but you cannot see the water from this perspective. The sand is quite high and the camera has a low position, close to the ground. The figure is holding two square-shaped plates. They are somewhat transparent. The figure is standing still, but you can notice some slight movements in the body. Especially in the arms because of the plates the person has to hold and the wind is blowing against it. After 45 seconds the person lets go of the square shaped plates, but they don’t fall on the ground. They float around the same spot the person was holding them. The suggestion of the plates floating in the air was made by editing a still image in the film. While the figure walks away from the scene, the plates keep on floating in the air. The person walks her way down to the ocean and disappears out of sight. What is left in the image are the squares keep floating in the air and then the video ends.

I made this video within a time period where I was experimenting with the medium of film. I wanted to explore options to emphasise the surreal aspect in my work. In a photograph I am able to make it look like something’s ‘floating’ in the air by choosing the right moment to click and it becomes a still moment in time. In a film this is not the case because of the continuous movement, so I tried to find a way to combine these two. Whereas the video is manipulated and my photographs are consciously not, this was an interesting exploration. I made this video as a part of an exhibition with otherwise only still images. To present the video in this setting made the viewer confused. At first you might have thought that it was another still image. But the presentation on a digital screen and the slight movements in the persons body gave away that it’s a moving image. With this contrast between still and moving image I could increase the surreal aspect in my work.

2. Crop Circle: This description is about a photograph I took in the North of France. You can find some very hilly landscapes down the coastal line. In this photograph you can see the grain is very high and the wind is blowing over it, making it look very velvety. In the image you can see a very tiny human figure standing in the centre of the image. If you look closely the person is holding a circle in the same soft yellowish colour of the grain field. The circle consists of only a small line and forms a framework where you can see the sky and the field, both equally divided.

I made this photograph by putting my camera on a tripod and let the shutter go off every few seconds. I packed two pvc pipes that I connected to each other in the form of a circle. Then I started walking trough the field while trying to hold the circle up high, which was challenging because of the heavy wind. As my photographs always depent on natural sircomstances, I do not always get te result I am aiming for. After shooting I got back to my camera and I could tell that there were some well timed images on there. Back in my studio I selected the frame that was most interesting composition wise. In the selected photograph the circle is placed exactly half in the sky and half in the field, there was a perfect balance.

This particular landscape fascinated me because of the velvety feeling of the grain, because of the wind blowing over it. I was very much interested in the phenomenon of crop circles at the time and tried to take it out of its context in this photograph. The ‘crop circle’ in this case was made and held by a person and not cut out of the grain itself. What kind of role we take in as human beings in nature is something I want to explore in my work. The human figure in my images is always me, because for me it’s important to really experience that particular moment within the landscape myself. It is about searching for that sublime experience. The experience that is always bound to nature and makes you feel powerful and very small at the time.

3. Yin Yan: This description is about a photograph I took in the south of the Netherlands, Noord-Brabant. The photograph was taken at the sand dunes and all you can see in the landscape is a surface of sand and some clouds in the sky. The photograph is in black and white. In the image there’s a human figure standing right in the centre of the image. Above the figure you can see two spheres ‘floating’. There’s a black sphere and a white one. The black one is more present in the sense that its intense colour is more in contrast with its surrounding. The white sphere is noticeable but it blends in more with the clouds in the sky.

I shot this image it in the sand dunes and it is actually a very closed in space but the view suggests an endless horizon. The position of the camera is as if there’s nothing more to see besides sands but actually it’s surrounded by trees. I put my camera on a tripod and brought someone to assist me to press the shutter release at the right moment. The two spheres are very large balloons and I brought a pump to blow them up on site. I tied the balloons to my body with string so that they didn’t blow after I threw them into the air. The strings are made out of very thin material so that they aren’t noticeable.

The confusion of the stretched out sand but actually surrounded by an entire forrest is what attracted me to make a work in this area. In this work I wanted to change the perception of our surroundings we have, I did that by putting aberrant objects and a person in it. I always try to find a contrast as well as an agreement with the objects and the landscape. Sometimes I want to emphasize the playfulness or take it to another level and turn the human figure into some sort of divine creature that has halos around it or other floating objects. It makes you think that human beings are predominant on this planet, but at the same time we are just little creatures in this massive environment. I called this work Yin Yan because of the white and black balloon next to eachother. They were almost playing in the air together and one couldn't be without the other.