Reflections Collage

I'm a Dutch artist living and working in Andalusia Spain since 12,5 years. I've studied at the art school in Holland, in Utrecht and in Arnhem. About my art: My DREAMSCAPES are formed by dreams, thoughts and the visual information that is fired at us every day. I create these DREAMSCAPES in my 'visual diary', on large paper or on canvas using mixed media: collage technique, by painting and drawing with pastel chalk. Textures, structures and layers are created, it is an organic process. The landscapes grow through layers of images, shapes and structures from the visual material that I encounter through various media. I use photos of film and TV stills, images and texts from magazines and newspapers, but also plastic waste and organic material that I find. . As a visually oriented person, I am both stimulated and overwhelmed by visual pollution and I feel the need to process, transform and translate this bulk of image information and materials that I find into a virtual landscape. Initially, in my formal works, figures played the leading role, but more and more collages take the form of landscapes that become more abstract and the figures disappear into the background and merge into larger forms and these forms merge with each other. The visual information is like leaves swirling down and composting into earth from which new life grows, such as in nature. This layering is like the stratification of experiences, of an 'emotional landscape'. It is a personal, logical and natural process. An exploration of experimenting with forms, materials and techniques, in which the shaping and the story that I want to tell reinforce each other.