THE MAIN THEMES OF MY CREATIVE WORK

I heavily focus on the exploration of the human experience with my creations. It fascinates me deeply to thoroughly contemplate the different facets and faces of what it means to live. To try and visualise my own humanity. Though of course, the possibilities here are endless. Since everything you are is precisely what makes you human.
In the beginning of my creative journey, I thought that my interest in this came from where I was standing. At the very beginning. Now I can see that it is and remains indeed of profound importance in my creative works.

Documentation is a consistent theme throughout my creations. It has become an essential part of what and why I create. Documenting helps me to deepen my understanding of the happenings in the world around me. And where my relation to this world lies. Because this for me is often hidden.

DOCUMENTATION

HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Fear is such a fundamental and vital emotion. Working through and visualising my fears is something I do very often. I find slivers of my fears in many of my creations. The urge to see what I fear has always been great.
Fear has led me to many of my creations. Fear inspires action. For me it has always been that way. And I recognise this now in the way that I create. I find myself facing my fears in expression. This feels most feasible, and yet most scary, when I am painting. Painting lets me touch my fears.

FEAR

Through creating I have found trust. A form of trust I had never met before I started creating. Feeling it for the first time has been transformational. This trust is ever-existent. It does not change, and is not related to where I choose to go with anything that I do. It stays.
This feeling of trust is not something I explore with my creations, rather it is something that lives within them.

TRUST

Photos are such a naturally raw and unedited source. For me they are a way to approach this world. Carefully, yet directly. Whenever I take photos of what I see around me I am mesmerised by what one image can capture. By what it is able to hold. To me a photo truly does feel like a moment frozen in time. And this is such an incredible opportunity. It allows me to take all the time I might need to understand an instance. A lot of the time I can’t seem to grasp what I see in photos.
They feel too beautiful, too close, too dense. But that is what I love about them. I love the way they challenge you to see what you haven’t seen before.

In films I learn. Each film I create lets me observe myself from another angle.
Through the words I write and the frames I choose, I learn incredibly much about what’s important to me. In film, there are so many choices. So many directions you can choose to go. And it are my choices that help me to get better acquainted with myself. I love how that feels. I love the proximity to myself in this way. In films, I feel entirely like me. And it feels safe to be.
As with all my other creations, crafting films gives me more insights into the ways that I understand and view the world.

With words it is different. It feels different. I think about it a lot; what writing means to me. And I end up in different places all the time.
For me writing comes in a form of attention. It is an act of making space to focus on something particular with your words. And the focus on whatever there happens to be in a given interval of time, is what I find myself in most often.
I assemble my thoughts in the way that feels most natural. May that be a poem or paragraphs of free writing. Writing of any kind has proven itself as a wonderful way to uncover what lies within a feeling, or a moment. It allows me to see the patterns of my thoughts right in front of me. And while that can feel scary, it is always worth it to me.

Colors are so wise. Wiser than I will ever be. That is what I always think and feel whenever I am using colors for expression. Colors are directly tied to every emotion one can have. Therefore, it are my paintings that I can find myself within when my feelings are the strongest; whenever they feel most urgent.
I believe this is why it started with color. In the beginning of my creative journey I was heavily focused on the usage of colors to find out more. Back then, it was the only way I knew how to interact with my being, how to try and understand it. But now that I have become more acquainted with meeting myself in my work, my tools for exploration have expanded.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE AND CREATIVE FOCUS

PHOTO

FILM

COLOR

WORDS

TOOLS FOR EXPLORATION

Notebook + pen

crayons

camera

tape

iPhone

sketchbook

WHY DO

I CREATE?