I graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 2005. After ten years of being closely involved with Stichting B.a.d in Rotterdam, I currently live and work between Berlin and ’s-Hertogenbosch. My practice encompasses both individual art projects—which have been exhibited internationally (including in New York, Miami, Paramaribo, Douala, and Berlin)—and collaborations within various art collectives.

An important aspect of my work is the active and direct engagement with my audience. This interaction forms a consistent thread throughout my practice, both in my solo projects and in the collectives I am part of, such as Volksrekorders, hOUTSKOOL, and If Paradise Is Half As Nice. For me, playing a connective and investigative role as an artist is essential—I aim to invite viewers into a shared dialogue.

My artistic practice is marked by a wide variety of materials and forms. Although my work often defies categorization, a keen eye for observation and a consistent investigative approach tie everything together. In many ways, this reflects an anthropological mode of inquiry: one that focuses on context, behavior, and the subtle construction of meaning in everyday life. Through my work, I aim to share a personal perspective while also creating space for interaction and reflection—a space in which to explore the social, the poetic, and the overlooked.

About My Work

My work begins with wonder—an endless fascination with the unnoticed and overlooked details of urban life. Peeling posters, birds circling around manhole covers, discarded trash, or the worn surface of a concrete slab behind a shopping mall—these fragments are often ignored, yet they form the foundation of my artistic practice. In a way, I see myself as an amateur anthropologist, curious about how meaning, behavior, and traces manifest in the everyday and how they tell stories about the people moving through these urban environments. Using imagination and techniques such as juxtaposition, exaggeration, and contrast, I transform these mundane elements into visual poetry. My work invites viewers to pause, reflect, and ask questions. It doesn’t provide ready-made answers but embraces ambiguity and aims above all to spark wonder.

I see my work as a space where the everyday meets the poetic and the political. The fleeting traces of urban environments tell stories and often reveal hidden societal or emotional layers. During the pandemic, I was inspired by neglected street posters in Berlin. Peeling and half-detached, they became the starting point for my series *Skins of Berlin* (2020). In this series, I combined these posters with monochrome oil paintings, detaching them from their original meaning and elevating them to sculptural objects. Similarly, my work *Some Other Memory* (2019) explores how a single event can be remembered in radically different ways by those who experienced it. Like all of my projects, these works are deliberately open to interpretation, allowing each viewer to find their own meaning. I believe this openness is one of art’s greatest strengths: its capacity to raise questions and create space for multiple truths.

My process is flexible and responsive to what I encounter in the world. It is not tied to specific materials or techniques. Each work grows organically out of my interaction with my surroundings. In the series *In Dust Things Meet*, I combined unexpected objects into sculptures that trigger new narratives in the viewer’s imagination. My work for Kunstverein Eisenturm Mainz began with a simple yet resonant moment: observing birds gathering on a foul-smelling concrete slab behind a shopping center, even though a park was nearby. This image became the starting point for a large-scale installation using ceramics and other materials—like a poem floating in space.

Collaboration is a key part of my practice, whether in interdisciplinary work or collectives such as hOUTSKOOL, Volksrekorders, and If Paradise Is Half As Nice. These collaborations enrich my perspective and often respond to specific sites, with context becoming interwoven into the final work.

Ultimately, my art is rooted in curiosity and a deep appreciation for ambiguity. By transforming fleeting details into visual poetry, I aim to create moments of introspection, connection, and curiosity. The answers are not found in the works themselves but arise uniquely in the mind of each viewer, shaped by their own experiences and interpretations.

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