My artistic practice consists of an ever-expanding archive of self-studies. Although my work is founded in analogue photography, it also includes a variety of other art forms. It is versatile work, consisting of multiple types of materials and combining various techniques. Despite my versatility in materials and mediums, one core commonality of my work is that of the body as a tool.
I use myself as an instrument. Just as letters in the alphabet are used to build words, sentences, languages and narration, the body as language can be seen as non-verbal communication, one which requires some kind of translation. This unfolds into a game with the viewer.
Using my own body as a starting point themes such as identity, representation, intimacy, texture, interaction and repetition are explored. This is done by placing my body in front of the camera, the other, the art medium, objects, the space (inside-outside) and itself.
I try to see how I can fit in, both literally and figuratively. As a human, as a woman and as an artist.
Creating these different and multiple versions of the self, through duplication, camouflage, persistence and repetition I endlessly copy myself and try to transcend my body as ‘me’. This multiplicity eventually evolves into the archive of self-studies. I like to use the word self-study instead of self-portrait, because the work is a constant exploration and is never finished.
In order to address a specific theme I make selections from this archive to produce a series, which is then given a new title. The importance of this new title in the re-contextualising of the works within a series is to impose a boundary on the series and differentiate between what works are inside and outside of this series.
Within these self-studies I am also creating a Silhouette Archive. This is an encompassing term for the outline works I have been making since 2015. It is an ever growing collection of works within which I ask a spectator to draw around me. This simple task evokes different questions and decisions, e.g.: how close does one come, how to hold the pencil … It plays with the typical position of the spectator versus the artist. It questions boundaries and intimacy. The result of the outline will never look the same. Because the drawing is made by the hand of someone else, there is the need to make it my own again. Therefore I fill in the contour, changing the outline into a mass. It can be done in various ways, but it always revolves around repetition, and consequently takes a long time.
My embroidery works are a way to reckon with my medical journey. They are based on medical imaging such as MRI and other scans. The embroidery works are a way to navigate Western medicine. My healing and repair though working with fabric and thread.
The embroidery works are an opening for the necessary dialogue about medical biases.
The act of sewing is inherently a combination of de- and re-construction.
For the whole can only be mended by making holes.