Introduction

This website shows a whole era, from my start as a visual artist to the present. The images are meant as a cross-section: from realism to contemporary work, from the flat surface with a photographic concept to a far broader image, conceptual and meaningful. It meant a constant search for a change in looking, making and experiencing.

I started as a realist (the photorealists were breaking through when I graduated) and my work went through several developments. Although I had some success with photorealism (the Royal Subsidy), I found it too much of a craft. I turned to new figuration, then geometric abstraction, and finally an abstraction that followed only the language and sublimation of the gesture.

These changes were never abrupt. I never followed the movements of the moment; I followed my own path in researching the image, the concentration of painting and an obsession with the gesture.

Around 1996 everything came together: the image gained a structured, conceptual basis, and every technique I had used became secondary, in service of meaning. That conceptual nature has stayed with me. Three dimensions became part of it too. After salvaging a lot of neon from factory buildings that would otherwise have ended up in a skip, I began to use neon light regularly as a reinforcing element.

My photography: while travelling I kept looking for the image that stays on the retina. A side step to celebrate the attractive sides of the snapshot.