MISSION & ARTIST'S STATEMENT
No one has ever asked me to make or talk about art, but I feel the need to do so, as an artist and art historian. I like to think, dream, talk, paint, draw, make things with my hands.
Wondering why certain media images create a certain "truth" from which people make their opinions as facts, have I always doubted.
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Reflecting on the period of theorizing art history, I became aware of the variety of perspectives of looking at things. I wandered how to deconstruct them to create different spaces of thought.
Looking back on my own art practice, questioning the so-called 'reality' or its representation, is a thread in my work. What is ‘fake’ (trompe l’oeil) or ‘real’ (materialized) I visualized in daily recognizable ‘objects’ or images, what turned out to be illusions
Hidden meanings or misleading perceptions is something I challenge in my work. How can I question or deconstruct (and/or break down) my own frames in order to arrive at a new alternative one, is one of my purposes.
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My work deals with a visual investigation of how images seduce the viewer into what they see and, more importantly, what they do not see or how they might feel deceived.
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How can I be questioning my own perspective as a white Dutch woman of a certain generation? Therefore, developing manners to come into a dialogue, is at stake.
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From a personal experience of where I belong to and what is outside and inside that boundary, I try to translate that into more universal images where recognizability and abstraction stands equal. My work deals with daily life, and makes references to art history, mythology or Christian culture, but seen from a different perspective, the female gaze.
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In my works, I elaborate and integrate personal life experiences together in a more universal visual language mixed with conceptual art and art-history references. Blending together these reflections in handmade paintings and drawings, I refer to classical techniques of oil painting or watercolour techniques, in a time where digital techniques take over the manual work. Awareness of the value of handicraft is an important issue for me. And how craft is valuable for expressing oneself as a method to come in connection with oneself and in dialogue with the public. Celebrating imperfection as a form of humanity in this age with the rise of AI.
MISSION
My mission as a visual artist, art historian, art educator, is to transmit my lifelong passion for the arts to a wide audience and, as a visual artist, to make the viewer who looks at my art with his or her personal individual perception experience that he/she/they are not only looking at framed images, but at the same time begin to doubt whether the apparent reality made visible in the artwork is a ‘real’ or a ‘fictional’ reality. A ‘trompe d'oeil’ and at the same time a ‘trompe d'esprit’.
