About Laura Hospes: Laura Hospes is mainly known as a photographer, she graduated in 2016 at Fotoacademie van Amsterdam and got a MA in Visual Arts in 2021 from the AKV St. Joost in 's-Hertogenbosch. With her photography she has won numerous awards. Since a few years she has been expending her art practice making room for performance, film and three dimensional works. Laura Hospes is fascinated by the skin. The body and its power and capacity to reshape and heal are the at the essence of her practice. Laura Hospes uses these qualities of the human body as she says: ” While scrutinizing my skin from the outside I notice a sensation of admiration and surprise. I tremendously respect its ability to regenerate, to pass on messages, to develop, to read and to being read”. Besides painting her skin with plaster she uses other means to manipulate our perspective on skin: she covers her skin with transparent tape or wears a body suit known as a fat suit and sometimes she constricts her body so tightly that stretch marks remain visible in her skin in order to test the abilities, the esthetic qualities and functions of and interaction with her skin. In awkward poses - sometimes uncomfortable, at times not free of sexual charge - she exposes herself in an objectified way to the public.
About Celine van den Boorn: Human connection is the essence of our existence and ability to survive. These series of works show this essence of human contact: strangers offering a helping hand to hands reaching out for help. We’re looking at the almost poetic dance of hands of refugees and volunteers that help them cross a border river.
Celine van den Boorn paints on press pictures and makes the people, present in the photo, disappear in the surrounding landscape. Because of her interventions a new, more ideal reality seems to arise. At a closer look, mattish contours and the unpainted parts show the still visible
traces of human presence. The visible tension and expression in these hands speak volumes. They represent fear and
hope. But moreover, these hands show actuality and timelessness because they demonstrate