What is photography to me
By following a study at the FotoVakSchool in Apeldoorn, I discovered that I was a ble to express my feelings, ideas and creativity through the lens of a camera. I intended to do Business Photography afterwards, but things went differently. In 2013 during a turbulent period for me, I visited the exhibition of photographer Ruud van Empel in Antwerp. After watching his work and video I was speachless and totally flabbergasted. This turned out to be the start of becoming an artphotographer.
The origin of photo art
Looking at the world around you through a lens allowed me to process this difficult time in my life. It also forced me to find out what it meant to be an artist and what drives me as a person. For me, my photographs were landscapes that passed me by, especially in black and white. My first series “Me Myself and My World (2013-2015) shows an emotional journey in all phases. These are the worlds of emotion that controlled my life at that moment. Forms, lines, abstract landscapes with the occasional recognizable shape in which you can always find two silhouettes that represent the wandering and always searching human being. Being a black-and-white series is a reference to this difficult time.
This period seamlessly evolves into a new phase where there is more room for other people. This resulted in the series “You Me and Our World- Eyes” (2015-2017). In this series, the eye is the focal point: her visualization for looking forward to a new period, looking at others, having an eye for… Photographing the eyes of those familiar to me and using them in my artworks allowed me to make use of the world around me. Together with Dutch writer Adam van Donk I published a book with 13 combinations of art photographs and short stories.