2017 Black ship Yellow cloud Sculpture

For many years the longing for the landscape of my youth has been a source of inspiration for my work: The low land by the North Sea on the edge of the continent. Themes such as the Dutch Landscape, the ship, water, wind, clouds, motion represent this nostalgia. In recent years my focus has been on a different theme. I have been interested in astronomy since high school, but only now I have time to study and attend lectures on physics and astronomy. There was a certain logic to me to visualize this learning process in ceramics, the material I’ve been working with for over 40 years. Portuguese Jesuits used images on ceramic tiles to illustrate their teaching centuries ago. I came across photos of azulejos with beautiful images of geometric figures in the catalog “Azulejos didacticos do Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro”. My tiles also often have a didactic component. For myself, with the aim of learning about a physics subject. But also for others to show the beauty of logic and science. The first years I was concerned with the three phases of matter on earth: gas, liquid and solid. Later I started to study the concept of entropy and the arrow of time. Since 2020 I have been working on the series “Notes on Matter and Antimatter”. These are ceramic tiles that can be seen as the pages of a workbook. Some topics: • Total solar eclips. The total solar eclips of 1919 provided definitive proof of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. • Bubble chamber photos showing the movements of subatomic particles. For example: Gamma radiation (energy) converted into an electron and a positron (matter and antimatter) according to Einstein’s equation E = mc2. • Exercises to learn how to analyze bubble chamber photos. • The Lorentz force that affects the trajectories of moving charged particles in the bubble chamber. A bubble chamber is a vessel in which the movements of subatomic particles can be visualized. From the 1950s to the 1970s, CERN (European Organization for nuclear Research in Meyrin, on the border of France and Switzerland) has been using the bubble chamber to investigate the behavior of subatomic particles. These particles are smaller than the nucleus of an atom. The traces left by the moving particles are made visible in the bubble chamber and can be photographed. By means of ceramic transfers, the photos and my texts are transferred to the ceramic tile.