Her work reflects the dissociated relationships between man, nature and culture. The images are often recognizable from a harrowing reality: desolate huts, oppressive landscapes or strange scenes in which people are absent. Without making reality explicit, Hoogerwerf confronts us as viewers with the state of the world in which cohesion, cooperation and society at the very least seem disrupted.
Surprisingly, thanks to the lighting and the use of colour, the atmosphere is not unpleasant, but rather dreamy and picturesque. It arouses the curiosity to investigate what you see: e.g. on an empty, demarcated field a high structure with a tent cloth, where a concert may have just been going on that has ended abruptly; or the image of a cheerfully decorated party scene where, however, no one turned up. That you can only guess what is going on is what makes her work so strong, universal and poetic at the same time.
She first makes models using all kinds of materials such as wood, sand, glue or paper. She uses paint and chalk to give colour and create atmosphere. She instinctively knows how to build up an image, e.g., by dramatically positioning an object or contrasting it with the background. Hoogerwerf uses exciting compositions in her landscapes. And her colour combinations look attractive. In this way she constructs her scenes before a photo is taken of the result.