As a child you slowly become aware that others cannot read your mind. Later you learn that what someone says does not necessarily correspond to what someone feels or thinks. As a teenager I was a social outcast and understood little of the social interaction around me. I became interested in the construct of personality, which is constantly changing with everything you do or every story you tell. But above all I became interested in the phenomenon of ’empathy’; in presuming someone else’s intent; in wanting to smell, feel, see and understand what another person may think or feel. In a roundabout way I became interested in the body, that beautiful anatomy, in what we actually are and what drives us more than we dare to admit, the frighteningly irrational, our misunderstood emotions.
As an artist, I am fascinated by empathy, the ability to (apparently) read minds, to be able to physically and emotionally ‘feel’ (conceive) what someone else is feeling; to put oneself in someone else’s shoes.
My work
As an artist I research the confrontation between myself and the other, I try to depict the subcutaneous, the invisible and unknowable in the other, their humanity. Through my work (with models) I train myself in empathy and through my artistic work I try to invite the viewer to the same empathetic experience – to amazed incomprehension.
That’s why life drawing (and modeling) is a continuous artistic research for me
- into identity:
- Human emotions
- Personality
- Desired identity
- Vulnerability: self confidence, shame and uncertainty
- into physicality:
- Somatic, how it feels to be/have a body or how you experience that body,
- What you can express with a body,
- or what it communicates; the perception of a body, how postures and tension in a body (or an image of it) evoke emotions in the viewer.
- into encountering the other; the interaction between subject and object, artist and model, beholder and drawing:
- on exposing yourself to the other
- on watching and being watched, seeing and being seen; objectification and recognition,
- on how to trust, spend time and pay attention to really watch (see), listen to (hear) and sense/feel someone else
- on how to open up to what presents itself with the other and honestly meet someone else – be in dialogue (M. Buber)
- on mirroring; recognizing yourself (your humanity) in the vulnerability of the other (E. Levinas)
- and into how to depict all this
- how to draw what is not visible (feelings, experiences, energy, movement)
I love the creative process: the searching and wandering, the exploring and discovering. A beautiful result is never a goal in itself, but nice to have.
Exhibitions and sales
I can sell completed works from my own collection. View the detailed price list to see what the costs are per sculpture. You can also rent a statue (if you are not yet sure whether you want to keep a statue) or lease it (hire purchase – if you do not want or cannot pay the sales price all at once). To make a sculpture stand out beautifully, a pedestal can be made for the statue in consultation or the color (patina) of a statue can be adjusted. Sketches and drawings are also for sale. For a sketch of 65 x 100cm I usually charge €100.
I am also interested in assignments. I don’t have a permanent gallery, so if you know of a gallery that would like to exhibit and sell my work, please let me know…