For Art Rotterdam, I present a solo installation consisting of five paintings and a ceramic table with remnants of a shared meal.
The table has been set with stories; what remains are traces of togetherness, captured in ceramics. It is the still life *after* the encounter. Together, the paintings form the living room in which this table stands: windows looking out onto wild, vast landscapes. They are glimpses that always begin at a fence or partition, an element that activates the desire to look further, to enter the world beyond.
My artistic practice has developed conceptually and spatially over the past few years. My paintings began as interiors featuring everyday objects, often with the dining table as the central motif. Those tables functioned as portraits of an evening: the traces of food, conversation, and presence. The perspective was deliberately unstable; I wanted the viewer to look up, to relate physically to the work. This phase coincided with a personal transition: moving into student accommodation, having to take care of food and household chores oneself, and discovering freedom, searching, and celebrating. From there, my work evolved into windows, curtains, and glimpses through doorways. There was always a longing for what is happening behind someone else's wall. After moving to another city, it became clear to me how essential eating together and being together are for a sense of happiness and connection. At the same time, the realization remains that the grass always seems greener on the other side, a universal desire that transcends my work.
Last summer, I cycled to the North Cape. During this 3,973-kilometer journey, I literally took my artistic practice with me on the bike. I made daily drawings in which I investigated scratches, lines, and the landscape from the perspective of movement. I compiled these 46 drawings into a publication featuring 18 stories from people I met along the way. Once again, people form the foundation of the work, although they never literally appear in my paintings. The viewer activates the image and brings it to life.
In December, I cycled through Morocco and made watercolor sketches of interiors and streets. What stood out: almost every window is fitted with an iron railing, often in ornate shapes, and sometimes without glass. You are in direct contact with the outside world. In some mountain villages, life felt as if it had gone back a hundred years in time, while at the same time there is a strong digital connection via the telephone. That tension, between being cut off and connected, between desire and reality, is amplified by the visible scars of the earthquake three years ago. Because this journey was less goal-oriented, I was able to look even more attentively.
Those observations form the stories told at the table, which continually transform into a longing for the places themselves.
In the installation at Art Rotterdam, I step outside the frame of the painting and invite the visitor to pull up a chair with me.