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STILL LIFE: LEMON

material: lemon

In my student days I created a lot of installations around the notion of vanity. With extinguished candles, withered flowers, overturned glasses and moldy food I portrayed the volatility of life. The days we spend on earth are mostly filled with silly quarrels over who should clean up what and not with the things that really matter. Here we see a lemon in decay, the white and turquoise mold reminds me of the Mediterranean Sea. Now that the fruit is nearing the end of its purpose it takes on the face of its native soil. We all become our parents in the end, don't we?

This work encourages the viewer to focus on eternal life. And what is a leftover lemon in the face of eternal life?

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FUCK YOU I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME

materials: paint and light

This piece was commissioned by Vereniging Rembrandt. It was supposed to be a dialogue between Rembrandt and me, the traditional and the contemporary artist, but while working on the piece I stumbled upon some anger. Rembrandt is to me what patriarchy is to feminists: a very big red flag. He gets all the money and all the great positions and to start a dialogue with him would be an affirmation of this system that I don’t believe in. How long do we have to keep up this fight?

In the work a reference can be found to Rembrandt's use of light, but also to the depressing murals of Mark Rothko. This is me saying: we don’t know how long we have to keep it up, but we do know how it will end.

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IF YOU FALL

materials: windows, plastic, oak frame, rope

I have a recurring nightmare in which I fall from a building. The glass windows are flashing by so fast they start to overlap. Sometimes I see them sharp, sometimes they are a bit blurry. It is frightening, yet at the same time it is very pure.

The installation is an attempt to capture this image. Multiple windows are brutally stalled out, surprising the ignorant passer-by. The oak frames around it look shattered, as if the work itself is a frightening act of violence, bursting out of its fixture. The rope, which is just hanging there, needs no further explanation. 

Since I created this work, the nightmares haven’t gone away. They have become more frequent, and they've become worse. I interpet that as a sign of my poetic brilliance.

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SOMEDAY

performance for one person

This performance reflects on the notions of youth, fairytales and hope. We see a performer spraying white fog. It is like he is creating this magical cloud around him. At the same time, this cloud makes him a little magical too. This self-sustaining dynamic of creating and becoming can be seen as an outcry against individualism. In the end what we see is a man creating his own illusions, his own hopes, like a donkey holding its own carrots. Being so alone because of it.

SOMEDAY was created during a transitional phase in my career. I had just finished dance academy and kept telling myself I was a great dancer, but unemployed. Then I met this performer and told him he was a great performer, but unemployed. This shift made my life a lot easier. 

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MEMORIES, VISIONS, ILLUSIONS

Here we see an installation I created after I realized that my mind changes my memories. It shifts and adapts the clear images I once had. The work is displayed surrounded by the work of Bill Brandt, with its angular picture frame lines and its sharp, highly contrasted and sinister images. A strong dialogue between the works arises.

Usually light and shadow are seen as circumstances but here I use them as geometric and abstract material. The technique is inspired by how the eyes and the camera work: light falls on the macula. The astonishing, yet unpretentious effect that MEMORIES, VISIONS, ILLUSIONS sorts is not just beauty, but much more importantly, an opening of the portals to contemplation, calmness and inner peace for the spectator.

I think this work is on display at FOAM, a dutch photography museum.

But I am not sure.

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OUR GARBAGE

materials: underground garbage container, garbage, barrier tape

In February 2020 I took out my garbage and the bag tore. Tissues, beer cans, a bottle of the contact lens solution my ex used, tickets for a concert we were supposed to go to, everything was spread out on the pavement. I looked at it and saw the mess of my life. This was the inspiration for OUR GARBAGE, an installation that confronted many citizens and shocked them with the sensational mess of their lives. A time capsule of their past, a reminder of decay. 

Brutally interfering with the usually clean public space, this work is an outstanding example of my many attempts to attack postmodern art. Postmodern art had increasingly become depersonalized with its ‘so very important’ dense theoretical framework, its ‘materials’ and ‘meanings’. But this is personal. And how do you walk away from that?

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Corrie&Dudley&Eunice&Franklin 

materials: tree, crane

I created this memorial after the storms that ravaged Europe from January 29th till the 20th of February 2022. The image of a tree hanging in the sky is in itself a beautifully petrifying and triggering remembrance of these storms. The shape of the tree however, also references the obelisks from Egypt that were seen as sunbeams turned to stone. This poetic connotation introduces a second layer of meaning to the work.

During the peaks of these storms, food delivery stopped and many flights were cancelled. To me, these storms made one thing very clear: in order to be able to eat spare ribs brought by scooters and fly on airplanes in the future, we have to put an end to climate change. Let’s remember that, people.  

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NUCLEAR TREE

materials: blue spruce

This tiny Christmas tree was thrown into the air after a dinner party with my former lover before it landed here. Through the artistic reinvention of the everyday object, this artwork is dealing with states of euphoria and disintegration. With such a simple yet thoughtful intervention, alternative meanings are created that allow the spectator to look at the world through a happy, hopeful and poetically perceptive lens. Absurdity, irrationality and disgust play important parts in this work.

That particular night I worked with a wide range of objects: plates, glasses, a plasma tv and and an iMac, transforming them into engrossingly disparate sculptures characterized by charm and wit. There were only a few people present to witness the act. It's a shame they do not want to see me again. Still, the documentation is very powerful.

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Untitled (traces)

materials: sprinkles on a plate 

This work is part of a series I started creating when I was only three years old. Every arrangement of each work within the series is determined by coincidence and chance. In 1922 Ludwig Wittgenstein published his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, stating that ‘The world is all that is the case. Everything we see can also be different. There is no a priori ordering of things.’ To me, this means that we must accept chance as an element of our life. Chance and messiness. You can see how strongly this work is influenced by these notions. Imagine: me, not yet able to speak, but able to express my thoughts through art. Imagine how my parents must have felt, realizing that they too had to accept coincidence in their lives. I still wonder why we only had sprinkles during the holidays. 

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WAS THIS REALLY NECESSARY?!

materials: waste container, takeaway cups, beer cans

Here we see a green waste container filled with cups. Only part of the container's interior can be seen, yet it is suggested to the passers-by that the bin is completely filled. 

The cups are all crushed differently. Herein, my dedication to the work and my love for details can be seen. Some cups have their edges chewed off, other bear lipstick marks. Some still show traces from the coffee or slices of ginger they contained. Each single cup is unique, like a snowflake. I like it when things are special and then get thrown away and forgotten. It's how I cope with coincidence and death. WAS THIS REALLY NECESSARY?! is saying: you live, you feel special and unique, and then you die. 

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HOW I LEARNED TO STOP LOSING PATIENCE AND LOVE THE WAIT materials: images from a digital advertisement (for a dating platform) and a Dutch drama series This work exists of a combination of multiple images coming from digital advertising and an online Dutch drama series. Through this synthesis, the work tries to transcend the concepts of ‘space’ and ‘time’ and the idea that a work of art can only be a snapshot of both. The synthesis produces a unique work that distances itself from other digital art in an almost arrogant fashion. And look at the bright pink, contrasting with the blue, practically blackmailing the audience to look at it.  If you look close you can still make out the image of the famous Dutch actress Hannah Hoekstra, but it could also be Paul de Leeuw. I don’t know. This work is saying: why can’t it be both?

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THE FAT BALLERINA HAPPILY ENTERTAINS YOU PART 4

materials: face mask

In the film American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999), youngster Ricky shows youngster Jane a video of a plastic bag dancing in the wind. The scene is erotically charged and it functions as one of the key references in my oeuvre (see also THE FAT BALLERINA HAPPILY ENTERTAINS YOU PART 2). Here I try to capture the feeling of dancing freely using a face mask. Movement is suggested by the way the mask barely touches the ground. The irony lies in the depiction of freedom using an image that reminds most people of restrictions, limitations, and me personally, of loneliness. 

In 2020 critics of Free Netherlands said this work would be too contemporary and after a few years no one would get these connotations anymore. Look who’s laughing now.

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BEGINNINGS AND RESOLUTIONS

materials: plastic, foam

Snakes molt their highly keratinized skins when the scales are so hardened that they stand in the way of growth. I think of this as an inspiring metaphor for us humans: the dogmatic ideas, the hardened feelings, the ingrained habits, we can leave them all behind as long as we dare to be vulnerable. Here we see my depiction of a snake. I like how the sunlight seems to get ‘stuck’ in the plastic. In the dirty yellow of the old foam you can see the tired softness of the material. 

Can a person really change? I think this work is optimistic, but some call it naive. In Canada the work was mistaken for a depiction of bowel movement. I’m fine with that, as long as they get that it is about leaving something behind. 

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R 20 1

materials: wood, painter's tape, glass, blinds (aluminium) 

This is my declaration of war to people who say that art should represent and evoke emotions or meaning. We just see material and composition. Even the title doesn’t mean anything: ‘R’ stands for Relievo, ’20’ for 2020 and ‘1’ indicates that this is my first relievo in 2020. It was created during the lockdown. While making it I wrote in my diary: ‘the repetition of the same shape over and over again feels oppressive. No element seems to be in control of another. The only interesting thing about it is the light striking it differently during the day. The work is begging for randomness, coincidences and chance.’ When the owners of the house found out I gave them this work, they got really angry. I hate it when people make it all about emotions again. 

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NATIONAL UNIMPORTANCE (THE PROCESS OF BECOMING AN INCIDENT)

materials: soil 

Contemporary art focusses on the process of creating instead of on the incident that is the result of that process. NATIONAL UNIMPORTANCE displays the process of digging two graves at the Museumplein in front of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. The work confronts people with death and their own unimportance, and emphasizes the fact that the value of art can be found precisely in its insignificance. During the digging the Studio's laborers thought about their ambitions: to become appreciated members of society, to have a family to feed, et cetera. 

After taking this photograph, the Studio donated 10 million euros to Shell, 15 million to Unilever and 150 million to ABN AMRO. As soon as we found out that no other organizations make donations this big to these companies, we doubled the amount. Just as the Dutch national government did when they bought a Rembrandt for 175 million euros. We wanted to make a long lasting impact, just as our Minister of Education, Culture and Science Ingrid van Engelshoven did.

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SELF PORTRAIT VII

materials: wine bottle, cigarette stubs

Here we see an empty bottle filled with cigarette stubs. In contrasting the singular (one bottle) and the plural (many cigarette stubs), my signature can already be found. The stubs are each referring to the moment they were smoked, together they represent many moments in time. Moments of waiting, of stress, of anger, all combined in one single image, transcending time and temporary emotions. 

Many times I looked at SELF PORTRAIT VII and wanted to throw it away. It reminded me of all the moments earlier described and I just wanted to put an end to all that. Right now the work is temporarily being exhibited in Amsterdam, but when the gallery returns it to me I might make a molotov cocktail out of it and throw it out. Perhaps that will give me some relieve. 

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SWAN LAKE (THE FAT BALLERINA HAPPILY ENTERTAINS YOU PART 1)

materials: feathers, leaves and a Chocomel can in a manhole

This work is a documentation of my grieve. It is made with the feathers from the pillow I cried in when I had to break up with my first love: ballet. The feathers are randomly poured out onto a manhole, emphasizing the messiness of the feelings I had. Later on I started to use materials like hair from my legs, used toilet paper and old socks. In an interview I described these objects as ‘the relics of a life I couldn’t live’. When the journalist asked me whether I was comparing myself to Jesus and my work to his relics I famously answered: ‘No, of course not. I never touched any of Jesus’s relics. But I did touch mine.’