Video, DVDpal ( 2min30 )

Vers terre vague ( Briselames )

Video, DVDpal ( work in progress )

Overview The Great Escape ( Open Houses )

Open House ( London )                           Open House ( Paris ) 

Open House ( Brussels )                          Open House ( Barcelona )

Open House ( Maastricht )                      Open House ( Paris )

SCHIETING

Dit werk is gebaseerd op een ritueel waarbij dorpelingen de initialen van verloofden in de straat branden door middel van een chemisch mengsel. Na verloop van tijd verdwijnt de gravure.

COUP DE CANON

L’origine de cette sculpture se retrouve dans un rituel dans lequel des villageois brûlent les initiales des fiancés dans la rue, utilisant un mélange chimique. Au bout d’un certain temps, la gravure disparaît.

G loves Y

Big Bang    

Dess/tin egocentrique: Hunting rabbits in the backyard: Les chasseurs de la réalité: Francis, James, Roland, Colin & Walt

Little Princess Me

Geisha

video (DVD PAL), 58min, 2005 

‘ Geisha ‘ consists of two videos which should be played simultaneously.

In both videos we see a dance - filmed at the same time from two different angles - performed by a butohdancer. Her make-up and clothes refer to those of a geisha. It’s a dance on a tram near the coastline on a rainy morning during summertime.

The dancer responds on her fellow travellers, transforms and ascends in the surrounding.

In one video the colours are soft and we only see the dancer in profile. The atmosphere is surreal and reminds of a fairytale.

In the second video the colours are harsh and reality bites. Here we see a stranger among strangers.

Geisha is the Japanese word for artist. In that sense the videos are a metaphor for the artist and his place in society.

The videos are also a reflection on the authenticity of cultures. The butohdancer in this video comes from the west and lacks the specific kind of concentration for which the Japanese butohdancers are famous. Nevertheless she uses butohdance as a means to search for her identity in an alien civilisation. In that sense the videos also question todays search for truth and identity, symbolised in an oriental dance which in it’s own way was a search for a Japanese identity after the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

It’s also a reference to Ruth StDenis, a pioneer in modern dance, who introduced dances from foreign ( and often colonial ) civilisations to western society in the beginning of the twentieth century.

But most of all ‘ Geisha ‘ is the record of a slow and beautiful live performance, viewed from two differnt angles, which offer many more perspectives.

Climbing Frame ( My Backyard ), burned wood, 200×200x200 cm

In My Backyard

video, DVDpal, 2003

Childhood

                                                                                           De verdrijving van Adam & Eva (vermomd als                                                                                                       mijzelf) uit het aards paradijs.

Bareland

used bricks, chicken breastbones, moss; 2005

Places I’ve Been, Consortium, Amsterdam, 2005 



Bareland was created for ‘Places I’ve been’, an exhibition in Amsterdam curated by Hans Op de Beeck.
By rethinking and looking back at my former work, I came to the concept of ‘My Backyard’.
’My backyard’ is based on what Aldous Huxley called ‘the rainforest of our brain’. It’s a place yet to be discovered, filled with strange creatures and scenes from long gone and current times. A religious enchanted forest, vivid in our daily mind.

For ‘Places I’ve been’ I wanted to create a magical scene, a scene that refers not only to my personal history and to the actual times, but also to the past and to unknown, mysterious places, which we all share.

The starting point for ‘Bareland’ was a well, more precisely a wishing well.
The study about wishing wells lead me not only to fairytales and amusement parks, but also to forgotten villages and battlefields. The content guided the form and vice versa.

The bones used in ‘Bareland’ are breastbones of chickens. The breastbones of a chicken have grown together to one breastbone. That’s why a chicken can’t fly.
Where I come from we have a little game when we eat chicken. If you find the breastbone during dinner, you choose a partner. Then you pull untill the breastbone breaks into two pieces. The one who has got the longest piece is the winner. He can make a wish.
In that way the breastbone of a chicken can be considered as a wishing bone.

Bareland is a tower/well made out of bricks found on construction areas. Every stone has a story, as do the bones. The moss surrounding the well refers to idyllic images you find in fairytales and utopian places.