Jan Banning
Jan Banning was born in the Netherlands to parents from the Dutch East Indies. He studied social and economic history. The influence of these elements can be seen both in his choice of subjects and his overall artistic approach. The subjects Banning investigates generally have a dominant social content such as the consequences of war, (governmental) power, justice and injustice. For his projects he collaborates with various research institutes, including the Max Planck Institute, and travels all over the world. His ability to convey intimacy results in exceptional portraits.
Ruud van Empel
Until the mid-1990s, Van Empel created his photographic assemblages using traditional collaging techniques of cutting pasting and retouching. In 1995 Van Empel switched to a digital process, using a computer to create his conceptual photographs. Using a vast stock of digital photo’s to create his photographs, Van Empel changed the face of digital fine-art photography. On the basis of this art-historical reference, Van Empel created a new genre within photography – without a ready-to-wear label. The artist himself speaks of the ‘construction of a photographic image, or photo objects’. Although he does make use of pure photomontage – he never applies so-called morphing techniques – in his final image he strives for a naturalism and realism as opposed to a surrealist approach. The artificiality is visible but the final image is a convincing, autonomous reality. Although produced digitally, Van Empel’s images are unique, each being built up of different combinations of photo’s. He uses photography as an independent form of depiction. Though digitally produced, the camera and photography remain at the heart of his practice. Every image consists of photographs taken by himself, which are then digitally assembled on the computer. The camera provides the building blocks of his compositions. Van Empel’s works are constructed down to the minutest of details, in which he considers the exact placement of every element, giving his images a sense of idealized perfection. Though created in the digital age using the most up-to-date techniques, Van Empel’s work defies temporal structures and instead represent universal themes.
Simone Hoang
Simone Hoang studied Photography at the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam and at the International Center of Photography in New York. In 2017 she attended the Charles Nypels Lab at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht.
In her work she responds to reconstructs and redefines images and memories in order to take control of the intangible. Hoang sees memory as a mental faculty based on recollection and reconstruction processes, rather than a faithful reproduction of past events. By over processing the image, she eliminates the obvious thereby making space for imagination to come into play. Her way of working can be seen as research, where the process is as important as the end result itself.
Esmee Zeeventer
Esmee van Zeeventer (Rotterdam, 1997) graduated the bachelor of Fine Arts at the AKI Artez Enschede in 2021. She is now working as an artist using analog photography and exploring moving image. Esmee seems to operate as an investigator of her own universe, reflecting on her personal history, investigating and showing contemporary possibilities on everyday motives and matters while pondering on questions of the world. She extracts images from the world around her to visualize life’s eternal subjects as memories, love, fear and loneliness.