"Still Life With Schoolbus that Elsje brought from NYC" Photograph - Limited Edition of 5

Is my purpose as an artist for my work to be appreciated for its beauty or emotional power? Something beyond just shooting a beautiful image? Maybe so, but my primary drive is to create, a drive that became stronger with age. One day I found a dead bird, wet, with ruffled feathers against a curb on a road near Amsterdam. I don’t know how it died, but its harrowing fate struck me. Twice the Fall that humanity befell. Driven from their celestial paradise in the sky and ending up in dirt, rain and spilled gasoline. I picked it up, took it home and made pictures of it, a process that later became the ‘Mortuus Avium’© series. Creating the images is a painful and sometimes begrimed process, since the subjects are dead and decaying. An inevitable fate I try to halt, albeit temporarily, by giving them a new and eternal life in my artworks. The dark artworks by Anselm Kiefer and the Dutch artist Armando always inspired me. My iconography however, is more rooted in the 16th century Dutch masters tradition. As an equipoise I needed to create artworks depicting life, exuberance and hope. Thus the ‘Vagina Monochromes’© came to life. Death and decay versus life and creation. The end versus the beginning. Thanatos versus Eros. More within the accepted realm of photography are the 'Nebula'©- and 'Architecture'© series: The 'Nebula'© series describe my fascination with the age old human fear of mist and what dangers it might contain, while at the same time beautifying mundane object and scenes. 'Architecture', began with researching the hate-love paradigm of my city, Amsterdam, with high rises versus the coveted 17th century city center. Occasionally eye and lens are drawn to a subject outside the categories above. The 'Mortuus Avium'© series mostly come as large, unique artworks, (occasionally also as smaller works in limited (1-3) editions), and unless indicated otherwise, always printed on Chromaluxe® and framed in repurposed frames. The 'Vagina Monochromes ©' are unique installations with LED panels, backlighting layers of print and cellophane, also in repurposed frames. The 'Affordable Vagina Monochromes Series' © are 'print only' editions of 10. All other works vary in size, shape and print technique. Repurposed frames, with a new original skin, are a hallmark of my work and all framed works have an engraved brass plate as certificate of origins attached to the back.