Hi, I am a collage-artist from the Netherlands. In the tradition of the DaDa -movement I made my first collage in the mid-80’s when I was very active in the punk/hardcore/squat-scene. It was 1984 and the collage was entitled ‘ Hoe amerikaans is Nederland ? ‘ and I’m very happy to still own it. A few years later I decided not to make political statements in my art anymore, but of course I break that rule sometimes.

In my work I try to create a world that’s being captured in a snapshot. Looking through the photographer’s lens you get that one moment in a world that doesn’t exist, or does it ?

The combination of black&white and coloured images is another important component in a lot of my works.

All my collage’s are handmade  with a pair of scissors, a little sharp knife, glue and piles of magazines of all kind. Because I use photografic material mostly as raw material I feel very closely related to photographers. But of course I also feel very closely related with painters too and sometimes with sculptors.

I think in all the years I make collage-art I developed and found my own kind of  ‘ language and colour ‘ in the great world that collage making is.

When looking back into the history of collage making, I found out that it’s been done since about 1870 so it’s obvious that collage making has been, and always will be a powerful and ( almost ) unlimited  way of making art.

Being autodidactic as an artist gives me the freedom to exactly do what I want. without being limited by any sytemathically thought facts about creating art.

Very closely related to collage making  is making a photomontage. It’s obvious that by using digital photo editing software and a scanner or digital camera you get some interesting options like the use of layers and the copying and scaling and lot’s and lot’s of more nice ways of manipulating pictures. But 1 of my favorites must be ‘ opacity ‘ which is very hard to create when making a collage by hand.

So when I’m not inspired to make a collage or just don’t feel like it , it’s sometimes very nice to sit at the pc ( sorry, no mac ) and listen to some cd’s and make some digital photomontage.

PS This site is ( of course ) not my whole catalogue but is created to give you an idea of what I do, and , of course , all copyrights are mine !