Artistic Vision

I work from a fascination with the critical point of damage and regeneration. Damage interests me because it exposes what normally stays hidden. My work arises through breaking, binding, burning, tearing, plucking, growing, exploding, casting, sewing, melting, aging, cutting, and gluing. I use these actions to experience what happens when something can no longer hold its existing state.

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The work is not about what is damaged or fallen apart, it is about its capacity to change. I see damage as resistance accumulating to a point of eruption, after which it no longer returns to its original state. Regeneration, for me, is the process in which a new state emerges from damage, which I see as hopeful regardless of circumstance.

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This is not only a working process for me but how I see being human itself: we are constantly in becoming because we must relate to damage we inevitably sustain. We are now entering a culture of replacement, in which we lose attention, connection, and craftsmanship with the matter around us. I see damage and regeneration as a means to regain attention for the material and organisms around us, by repairing rather than replacing.

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My practice is not a linear process; tensions often arise from a coming together of impulses, movements, materials, myth, and sketches. I experience a deep resistance or point of friction, I see around me where the damaged generates new form, I experience myth in everyday objects through their handling. When something holds resistance too long in my mind, it comes out as an explosion of actions. The tension between destroying and reshaping feels like the shortest moment with the longest consequences.

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My work exists across several media, with performance and sculpture as the main line. Performance as a direct reaction in the moment with the body, sharpening the senses, unpredictability, and moving from pure intuition. Sculpture responds to this; it is an extension of the body, taking on the form and materiality the body itself cannot assume, and deforming the body in turn. Sound creates the bridge between body and outside world, and can provoke a reaction in the body from material and sculpture. This I then capture on film, to let the resistance of the outside world, the body, and the performance influence one another.

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In the Netherlands, where almost every square meter is arranged, planned, and controlled, I am drawn to places where damage finds its way. The landscape offers resistance and is uncontrollable. It makes the body vulnerable and uncomfortable. Sand pulls you deeper into the ground, forests cut your skin, open fields expose you to rain and wind. It is constantly in motion, sustains damage, and regenerates. It is both a playing field and a source of my material, because for me it carries the entire process of damage and regeneration.

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Ultimately, within my practice, I pose the question: do we exist because we control, or because something resists us?