I feel it is my mission to make people aware of the beauty and at the same time fragility of nature. At the same time, this sometimes feels like hypocrisy because I am part of the society that causes the destruction of the earth's habitability. Even though I do my best to live simply and keep my ecological footprint considerably smaller than "the use" of 1 earth...
While the ice caps are melting and the oceans and seas are warming and being robbed, polluted and poisoned, also on land the humans leave a trace of destruction. Or perhaps better to say, that's where the misery begins. Because that's where humans have settled and do most of their 'ingenuity'.
The Western world should really be called the 'world of never enough'.
With COP29 (the "29th UN Climate Change conference") approaching, we are being fed scientific publications that give us the latest updates. Although these are not happy reads, it is important reading for me. It inspires me to make new work. And motivate me to live the way I live. Above that, it inspires and motivates me to tell you about it.
And why this post, why am I telling you this? Why do I hope you will read the whole thing?
Because it's important that you know the condition of your home. It is your only home, our only home.
Screaming sounds of power
saws numb your thoughts
Ears bleed, hearts tear
Forests cry
The sun colors the evening in
the hues of the choking smoke
that kills tree after tree
How high may become
the price the future
will have to pay?
Thick clouds of black
smoke darken the sun
Eyes tear,
trees cry
The sun colors the evening
in the hues of the flames that
scorch tree after tree
How high may become
the price the future
will have to pay?
Commissioned by a poet for the cover of her new book of poetry, I created two new versions of the work Symbiosis. Herewith the second: a shoal of fish swims through a kelp forest.
In addition, I added an insightful quote from Charles Darwin and a link to an article on kelp farming.
'Beyond The Void' is the second artwork of a triptych about the endless series of hollow words and empty promises made by politicians, leaders and big corporations regarding…. Well, regarding everything that harms the earth, harms nature, harms the poor, harms the future generations….
Follow me on the journey through the void. More thoughts on this subject in the third post tomorrow...
'The Void' is the first artwork of a triptych about the endless series of hollow words and empty promises made by politicians, leaders and big corporations regarding…. Well, regarding everything that harms the earth, harms nature, harms the poor, harms the future generations….
Follow me on the journey through the void. More thoughts on this subject in the third post, the day after tomorrow...
You ask me why I live
alone in the mangrove forest,
at the edge of the infinite sea.
I smile, I am silent
until even my soul grows quiet:
it lives in the other world,
one that no one owns.
The trees bloom.
The waves keep coming.
Mangroves, just as seagrass beds and coral reefs, keep coastal zones healthy. Mangroves provide essential habitat for thousands of species. They also stabilize shorelines, preventing erosion and protecting the land — and the people who live there — from waves and storms.
Kelp forests are dense areas of kelp growth that occur near coastal waters. Kelps are ‘primary producers’ that modify the environment to create suitable habitat for a great diversity of species. Therefore they are known as foundational species.
Pulsating blue
float gently between the trees
forest in bloom
I show you how I see the earth from, let's say, a few centuries from now. An amalgamation of the forests and the oceans. With hopefully in the distant future a rich ecosystem that has managed to adapt to the new conditions.
While trees cry
fish shed their tears
in endless waves
When I imagine what the earth will look like in 100 years, the image that comes to mind most emphatically is one of an earth with sharply rising sea levels.
Suppose an oak tree longs to become a birch. Then that is possible only if a single, individual oak cell is able and willing to become a birch cell. Then, after that change is accepted and then copied by the surrounding cells, eventually the whole tree will change. That's what I call organic change.
Thick clouds of black smoke darken the sun Eyes tear, trees cry The sun colors the evening in the hues of the flames that eat tree after tree How high may become the price the future will have to pay?
I feel it as my mission to make people aware of the beauty, power and simultaneously fragility of nature. Yet at the same time, this sometimes feels like hypocrisy because I am part of the society that is causing the destruction of the habitability of the earth. Even though I do my best to live simply and keep my carbon footprint considerably smaller than "the use" of 1 earth. At times when I feel that, I also feel an urge to create a work with a poignant message....
General info on this artwork
Trees Cry (1) is a digital artwork, printed with high-quality ink on museum-quality cotton paper (Hahnemühle Photo Rag® 308gsm). The work comes in a limited edition of 10, signed and with a certificate of authenticity.
For these artworks, I start with one or more photographs made by myself. I edit it in multiple process runs and in several layers by color manipulation and adding and editing multiple digital photographic effects. I do that until a surrealistic atmosphere is created that touches me and tells the story I want to tell.
The photograph(s) I begin with has/have an impressionistic, surrealistic or abstract realist style, which is the basis for all my work.
Through my artworks I ask you to reflect for a moment on the nature around you, on the beautiful feeling that nature can evoke, on your actions to support the wellbeing of the earth and everything that lives on it, on what humanity loses when many of us continue on the destructive path of ever more greed and consuming, on how you can survive in this rapidly changing world…
Thick clouds of brown smoke darken the sun Eyes tear, birds cry The sun colors the evening in the hues of the poison that factories vomit How high may become the price the future will have to pay?
I feel it is my mission to make people aware of the beauty and at the same time fragility of nature. At the same time, this sometimes feels like hypocrisy because I am part of the society that causes the destruction of the earth's habitability. Even though I do my best to live simply and keep my ecological footprint considerably smaller than "the use" of 1 earth. At times when I feel that, I also feel an urge to create a work with a more poignant message....
General info on this artwork
This is a digital artwork, printed with high-quality ink on museum-quality cotton paper (Hahnemühle Photo Rag® 308gsm). The work comes in a limited edition of 10, signed and with a certificate of authenticity.
For these artworks, I start with one or more photographs made by myself. I edit it in multiple process runs and in several layers by color manipulation and adding and editing multiple digital photographic effects. I do that until a surrealistic atmosphere is created that touches me and tells the story I want to tell.
The photograph(s) I begin with has/have an impressionistic, surrealistic or abstract realist style, which is the basis for all my work.
Through my artworks I ask you to reflect for a moment on the nature around you, on the beautiful feeling that nature can evoke, on your actions to support the wellbeing of the earth and everything that lives on it, on what humanity loses when many of us continue on the destructive path of ever more greed and consuming, on how you can survive in this rapidly changing world…
While trees cry
fish shed their tears
in endless waves
In the project Drowned Earth I show you how I see the earth of a century from now. A fusion of the forests and the oceans, with hopefully in the distant future a rich ecosystem that has managed to adapt to the new circumstances.
Mangroves, just as seagrass beds and coral reefs, keep coastal zones healthy. Mangroves provide essential habitat for thousands of species. They also stabilize shorelines, preventing erosion and protecting the land — and the people who live there — from waves and storms.
While the ice caps are melting and the oceans and seas are warming and being robbed and poisoned, humans on land are not sitting still either. Or perhaps better to say, that's where the misery begins. Because that's where humans have settled and do most of their 'ingenuity'.
The Western world should really be called the 'land of never enough'. There where consumption was invented, at the same time as growth for growth's sake and the 'creation of shareholder value'. In other words, profits that are never high enough. Our addiction to money is so strong, that we are prepared to exhaust the earth for it, to destroy plants and animals and to make the world of the children and grandchildren of humanity dry, or flooded, and hot. In many places even unbearably hot.
Many people even think (still!) that the consequences of global warming will not be too bad. After all, we are smart, a technical solution will be found that will allow us to continue living the way we are used to...
Meanwhile on the already scorched earth...
...larger and larger parts of the earth are being scorched. Scorching by the ever-increasing temperatures. By spraying poison to make the yield of intensive agriculture as high as possible. And by the emission of poison into the air, land and water as a by-product of our endless consumption. Scorched by the fires that rage around the world day in and day out as a result of increasing drought. And by fires started by humans to turn even more nature into monoculture with endless fields of genetically engineered crops on exhausted, diseased soil.
You all know by now that a text like this accompanying a work of art is not quite my style. But sometimes you just have to go outside, look up at the sky and scream really loud...
A cry for climate action...
General info on this artwork
These artworks are digital transformations of a photograph. Printed on order with high-quality ink on museum-quality, acid-free cotton/rag paper (Hahnemühle Photo Rag® 308gsm). The work comes in a limited edition of 10, signed and with a certificate of authenticity. But of course, it is also available as Open Edition print, without signature and not numbered. Available in any size you desire !
Maximum size is 150Wx150H cm / 60Wx60H inches. The work can be printed in any size up to that maximum, so please let me know the size you would prefer.
I start with one or more photographs made by myself to create these artworks. Then I use digital painting, color adjusting and adding and transforming multiple artistic textures and effects. I do this until there is a surreal atmosphere that touches me and tells the story I want to tell you.
'Scorched Earth (1)' is an artwork in my collection 'Secret Places'.
Through my artworks I ask you to reflect for a moment on the nature around you, on the beautiful feeling that nature can evoke. Thus to think about your actions to support the wellbeing of the earth and everything that lives on it. And on what humanity loses when many of us continue on the destructive path of ever more greed and consuming. And please, reflect on how you can survive in this rapidly changing world…
Pulsating blue
float gently between the trees
forest in bloom
I show you how I see the earth from, let's say, a few centuries from now. An amalgamation of the forests and the oceans. With hopefully in the distant future a rich ecosystem that has managed to adapt to the new conditions.
While trees cry
fish shed their tears
in endless waves
When I imagine what the earth will look like in 100 years, the image that comes to mind most emphatically is one of an earth with sharply rising sea levels.
I have enjoyed converting a small selection of my forest photographs into intensely dark black and white artworks. They were of course meant to express my concern about the climate and the lack of climate action.
But they have also become a new way for me to look at my earlier work. After I finished the black and white works, I felt a great need to do something with colors. Much bolder colors than what you generally see in my work, sunsets excepted. I asked myself: how do we prevent the forests from becoming as dark and gloomy as in the black-and-white photos. How do we bring back color where it is needed, and keep the colors that are still present from fading?
And then, Black Friday came into sight, so I read in various newsletters and posts on LinkedIn... The desire to make a statement against it was strong.
And so the series "Colorful Days" was born.
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Preserving color by degrowth
It is an indictment of the greed for buying, the unbridled consumption that many people, living in so-called "developed countries," practice on a daily basis. The works ask you and everybody who sees them the question, "What have you done to preserve my color, to restore colors where they are fading, to bring more color into the gray world that people create around them and where there is no place for nature anymore."
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An appeal to you too
They call on you to boycott the increasing number of "black days" like Black Friday. Days that further fuel humanity's consumerism. They are telling you that living with nature, preserving and restoring nature, is only possible if Western man consumes significantly less. And what we consume, must be produced colorfully, that is, in harmony with nature.
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Availability
The series 'Colorful Days' is part of my collection'Secret Places'.
Prints are available in my Saatchi Art portfolio, ask for a quote or contact me through a message.
General info on these artworks
These artworks are a digital transformation of a photograph, printed with high-quality ink on museum-quality, acid-free cotton/rag paper (Hahnemühle Photo Rag® 308gsm). The works come in a limited edition of 10, signed and with a certificate of authenticity. But of course, it is also available as Open Edition print, without signature and not numbered. Available in any size you desire !
Maximum size is 225Wx150H cm / 90wx60H inches. The work can be printed in any size up to that maximum, so please let me know the size you would prefer.
I start with one or more photographs made by myself to create these artworks. Then I use digital painting, color adjusting and adding and transforming multiple artistic effects, until a surrealistic atmosphere is created that touches me and tells the story I want to tell.
ALL WE NEED IS LESS CONSUMING
Through my artworks I ask you to reflect for a moment on the nature around you, on the beautiful feeling that nature can evoke. Thus to think about your actions to support the wellbeing of the earth and everything that lives on it. And on what humanity loses when many of us continue on the destructive path of ever more greed and consuming. And please, reflect on how you can survive in this rapidly changing world…
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