jacob berghoef Archives

October 4, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Drowned Earth: Swimming In Tears II

While trees cry
fish shed their tears
in endless waves

'Swimming In Tears II' is an artwork in my project 'Drowned Earth'.
In this project 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.

Will there still be room for humans in that world?
Yes, I think there will be. Will there also be room for consuming Western man? No, unless they learn to be one with nature again. It will take several generations before that happens. I sincerely wonder whether the generations of Western man who are now living on earth will be able to bring about this transformation. More time is needed for that, I fear....

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.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

Tags: abstract photography, abstract realism, abstract surrealism, climate action, climate art, climate crisis, climate emergency, dark, drowned earth, fine art photography, jacob berghoef, less, light, modern art, pure, surrealism, surrealistic art, surrealistic impressionism, swimming in tears

September 13, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Drowned Earth: Living In The Other World

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.

Inspired by the poem ‘I Make My Home in the Mountains’
Li Po (701-762 )

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.

There are many threats to mangrove forests: sea level rise, tourism, land reclamation for agriculture, shrimp farms, pollution from fertilizers from agricultural areas and waste from cities, logging... just to name a few.

The consequences are enormous. Not only because, like all trees, they hold a lot of CO2 both in their biomass and in the soil of the forests, which is released when the forests are destroyed, but also because they house very fragile ecosystems that are lost when the trees disappear.

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Living In The Other World - You ask me why I live alone in the mangrove forest, at the edge of the infinite sea. - Surrealistic digital photo art, part of the collection Drowned Earth by Jacob Berghoef — Living In The Other World

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.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

Tags: abstract surrealism, climate art, climate crisis, climate emergency, digital art, fine art photography, impressionistic digital art, jacob berghoef, mangrove forest, pure, surrealism, surrealistic art, surrealistic impressionism, transformed photo

August 22, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Right To Fly

I have the right to fly
To grow, to prosper
The right to be
To raise offspring
To feed you and others
To be fed myself
Who defends our rights?

Does a human being have more right to a clean earth and a safe and healthy life than a bird, a tree, a flower?

If your answer to this is "Yes," then why?

Hasn't that human being forfeited that right by polluting the earth, by risking his health through bad eating habits and by using year after year more than what the earth can provide?

Does a Western person have as much right to it as a person in a developing country who has never been guilty of that unbridled consuming, polluting and unhealthy behavior?

Right or Favor?

Do I have a RIGHT to live in a healthy environment? Or is life a FAVOR of nature, which I may enjoy as long as I behave nicely and don't make a mess of my body and my surroundings, and that of people around me and people far away?

I can get terribly irritated by the cries of Western people about their rights. Right to clean air, right to clean water, right to healthy food, right to... In my opinion, we in the 'developed countries' have long since forfeited all our environmental rights, and yet we continue as if the amount of available rights for us can never be exhausted.

Wake up, it's long run out. There is no clean water anymore, no clean air, no clean fertile land. Your rights, my rights, they all stop, where and when we abuse the rights of nature.

We spoiled children, we must earn our rights for today and tomorrow and the rights of humanity in the future. By sustainable living, by consuming significantly less, by cleaning up what we ourselves have polluted.

Right To Fly - I have the right to fly To grow, to prosper The right to be To raise offspring To feed you and others To be fed myself Who defends our rights? Surrealistic digital art, based on fine art nature photography by Jacob Berghoef — Right To Fly

'Right To Fly' is a new digital artwork in my collections 'Stray Birds' and 'Digital Art'.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

Tags: abstract realism, dark, digital art, favor, fine art photography, jacob berghoef, less, light, modern art, pure, right, surrealism, surrealistic art, surrealistic impressionism

August 15, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Wandering Dreams

Dreams wander
between the trees,
waiting, longing
to be reborn as
common sense
in a new time

Many people dream of an earth that is safe and clean, that is treated with care so that it can give enough to all its inhabitants without becoming exhausted.
Only when all those dreams come to life in common sense and people take action to live differently will that dream become a reality.

Do you ever dream about that too? And what did you do today to make those dreams come alive?

I washed myself this morning with cold water, yesterday I grabbed my bike to go shopping. Then I covered a section of the vegetable garden where the harvest is finished with a layer of shredded garden waste. As food for the new sowing season next year, to cover the soil in its resting period against drying out and prevent the growth of too many weeds...

Wandering Dreams - Many people dream of an earth that is safe and clean, that is treated with care so that it can give enough to all its inhabitants without becoming exhausted. Only when all those dreams come to life in common sense and people take action to live differently will that dream become a reality. - Surrealistic digital artwork by Jacob Berghoef — Wandering Dreams

'Wandering Dreams' is a new digital artwork in my collections 'Secret Places' and 'Digital Art’↗️.

This digital artwork was created through a collaboration with Janet Akselrud↗️, here is her website↗️.
She generously gave me permission to use one of her digital artworks.
Thank you Janet, I hope you like the result !

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page↗️.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

Tags: abstract realism, clean earth, dark, dreams, ecocide, fine art photography, jacob berghoef, less, light, modern art, pure, surrealism, surrealistic art, surrealistic impressionism, wandering

August 8, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Harvest Dance

Sun and rain have done their work
Barnacle geese dance above the fields
The harvest has begun

August heralds the beginning of the harvest season. In practice, we have been harvesting in our vegetable and fruit garden for several weeks, but the farmers around us are now gradually beginning to harvest the crops as well.

It feels to me like the beginning of the end of the growing season. It is not yet autumn, or in my words, nature's rest period has not yet begun; in fact, it is the busiest time of year for food-growing humans. But nature's task is almost over for this growing season, the fruits can be picked.

And in recent days we have seen the first flights of geese pass by, shuttling back and forth between the nature reserve where they spend the night, and the fields where harvesting has taken place, feeding on the scraps left by the harvesters.

Have they sensed that harvest time is beginning, and there is plenty of food for them?
I think so...

Harvest Dance - Sun and rain have done their work Barnacle geese dance above the fields The harvest has begun - Surrealistic impressionistic landscape digital art by Jacob Berghoef — Harvest Dance

'Harvest Dance' is a new digital artwork in my collection 'Wavy Fields'.
The photo of the fields in front of or house, which is the basis for this work, is made by Anuscka.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

Tags: abstract photography, abstract realism, barnacle geese, dance, dark, digital art, fine art photography, geese, harvest, jacob berghoef, less, light, modern art, pure, surrealism, surrealistic art, surrealistic impressionism

July 25, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Autumn Sea

An autumn walk on the beach of Schiermonnikoog, one of the Wadden Islands on the north coast of the Netherlands. The weather is stormy, the waves break with large foam heads.

A digital painting, made of a photograph I made in 2011 on the beach of the island Schiermonnikoog, the Netherlands.
Three digital layers melted together. Each of them ach with the same photo, two of them edited with color and texture, one with the original photo.

Autumn Sea - A digital painting, made of a photograph I made in 2011 on the beach of the island Schiermonnikoog, the Netherlands. - Digital painting by Jacob Berghoef — Autumn Sea

This is a digital artwork, available as archival pigment print. Printed with high-quality ink on museum-quality, acid-free cotton/rag paper (Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Ultra Smooth 305 g/sqm). The work comes as 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 work on it 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, abstract or abstract realist style, which is the basis for all my work.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

Tags: autumn, dark, digital art, digital painting, impressionism, jacob berghoef, less, light, modern art, ocean, painting, pure, Schier, Schiermonnikoog, storm, surrealistic art, surrealistic impressionism

July 18, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Summer Evening At The Pond

I sit on a stone,
on the east side of the pond

Staring at the water,
waiting.
Nobody understands why

All I want is to see how
the setting sun colors the flowers
in the ripples
of a summer breeze.

Summer Evening At The Pond - See the evening sun color the flowers, reflecting in the rippling water of the pond - Surrealistic digital artwork by Jacob Berghoef — Summer Evening At The Pond

'Summer Evening At The Pond' is a new digital artwork in my collections 'Secret Places' and 'Digital Art'.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page↗️.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

July 11, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Scorched Earth

[scorched]
adjective

UK /skɔːtʃt/ US /skɔːrtʃt/

slightly burned, or damaged by fire or heat

While the ice caps are melting and the oceans and seas are warming and being robbed and poisoned, man on land is not sitting still either. Or perhaps better to say, that's where the misery begins, because that's where man has settled and does most of his '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', or 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 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, 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. By the emission of poison into the air, land and water as a by-product of our endless consumption. By the fires that rage around the world day in and day out as a result of increasing drought. By fires started by man 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 stand outside, look up at the sky and scream really loud...

A cry for climate action...

'Scorched Earth' is a new digital artwork in my collections 'Secret Places' and 'Digital Art’↗️.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page↗️.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

July 1, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

Touched By Dawn

Early morning after a cool night. The first rays of sunlight make a mist rise from the wet grass. Omens of a warm day....

A digital experiment with a photograph I made in 2018 in the floodplains of the river Waal near Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

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Touched By Dawn - Early morning after a cool night. The first rays of sunlight make a mist rise from the wet grass. Omens of a warm day.... - Digitally transformed photograph, landscape art by Jacob Berghoef — Touched By Dawn

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. Of course also available as Open Edition.

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 work on it 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, abstract or abstract realist style, which is the basis for all my work.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

June 21, 2022 — Comments are off for this post.

And Then The Sun Stood Still – Summer….

The word "solstice" comes from the Latin solstitium, which means "sun stands still," because it seems that the movement of the sun's path, whether north or south, stops for a few days before reversing. In the northern hemisphere, summer solstice means that the light is moving away from us. The days get shorter and darkness takes over again.

I love this time of the year, in which the whole cosmos seems to come to a standstill for a moment.

‘And Then The Sun Stood Still - Summer’ is a new artwork in my collection ‘Secret Places’.

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And Then The Time Stood Still - Summer solstice, the sun seems to stand still for a few days, before it turns towards us again. - Impressionistic digital art by Jacob Berghoef — And Then The Time Stood Still - Summer

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. Of course also available as Open Edition.

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 work on it 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, abstract or abstract realist style, which is the basis for all my work.

Prints are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page.

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 what we lose when we continue on the destructive path of ever more…

Published by Jacob Berghoef in Portfolio

Tags: abstract photography, abstract realism, abstract surrealism, dark, fine art photography, jacob berghoef, less, light, minimalism, modern art, pure, solstice, summer solstice, surrealism, surrealistic art, time, time stands still, zonnewende