Nostradamus
The artwork that he presents is inspired by an early painting series of his: Nostradamus. Nostradamus is about fire, both natural and those lit in political protests. The fire is prophetic. It shows the course of humanity and where it might lead us if this course isn’t changed. They show us the narrative of the current state of the world. They show how we are opposed to one another. How, under colonialism and capitalism, we have othered and have been othered. Either from each other, or from nature. Nostradamus tells us the story of what we are experiencing right now. It asks the beholder to overcome opposition and otherness, so that we may come together and face climate change.
Thich Quang Duc
2020
Acrylic paint, Acrylic Marker, Crayon
90 x 120cm
This painting was the first of the 'Nostradamus' series. This painting shows the prophetic quality of fire. I think the picture of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is iconic. The picture is indescribable to me.
To fight without violence towards others, to believe in something to such an extent that you are not only willing to die for it, but to set yourself aflame. Especially after I heard that he did not scream, but died in silence. After his death earlier unrest in Vietnam resulted in protests against the discriminatory government that fuelled the Vietnamese civil war.
San Francisco
2020
Acrylic paint, Acrylic Marker, Crayon
90 x 120cm
This painting is about the California wildfires. The painting is based on a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and a view of the San Francisco skyline. The wildfires in the area and the smoke they produced created a red glow that, like the fog, enclosed the city of San Francisco.
The numbers that were written in the painting are all statistics about these and other wildfires in the state of California: the number of firefighters that had to come from other countries to help battle the flames, the costs of the damages or yearly expenditure on fire fighting, and many other other factors. By juxtaposing the violent fires with the statistics about them, this painting points to the irony of analyzing these violent wildfires without actually doing something to combat the underlying cause: climate change and global warming.
Amazon
2020
Acrylic paint, Acrylic Marker, Crayon, 2CB
90 x 120cm
I made the first layer of paint while I was experimenting with painting whilst under the influence of the psychedelic 2CB. In the following painting sessions I had to react to psychedelic creative choices, which seemed more abstract now that I was not painting under the influence anymore. I wanted this artwork to be very direct and so I steered away from the abstract.
I wanted the painting to be violent and to be a portrayal of a popular slogan on social media about the fires in the Amazon rainforest: “The lungs of our planet are burning”. Similar to the Juxtaposition in San Francisco (2020), I wanted to place the devastation of natural resources with numbers. In this case, the net worth of the company Amazon (at the moment of painting this work). This artwork asks how can a company with the same name as the lungs of our planet be valued more?
04
Australia
2020
Acrylic paint, Acrylic Marker, Crayon
90 x 120cm
This painting was inspired by two pictures. One of a koala limping away, trying to flee the wildfires slowly enclosing the creature. The second picture was of a kangaroo fleeing a scorching residential area.
The painting style was influenced by the Dreamtime painting style of Aboriginal cultures. I wanted to create a continuity between the present I was depicting and the natural world that Aboriginal art has been depicting for thousands of years.
Artic
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic Marker, Crayon, Wall paint
90 x 120cm
The pictures of the Arctic on fire almost seemed unreal when I first saw them. To see trees, that were thick with a cover of snow, on fire was almost the equivalent of seeing water burn. The Arctic circle isn’t all snow, and especially with the earth warming up, most trees will not see such a cover of snow anymore.
In this painting I wanted to take the images of the trees covered with snow, and the trees without that cover to show the dynamism of the future and the past. In Arctic (2021) we can see the past, present and the future simultaneously. All connected through the flames brought on by climate change.
Gates of Hell
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers
90 x 120 cm
The Gates of Hell, or the Darvaza Gas crater is a collapsed natural gas field in Turkmenistan that has turned to a fiery pit of mud and rocks since 1971. The most popular theory about how the natural gas field collapsed is that it was intentionally ignited to clear it from poisonous gas. It has been burning ever since.
The bystander effect is a psychological phenomenon that states that people in crowds witnessing an event where someone is in need of help, will rather stand by and watch than intervene and help. To me this phenomenon is an accurate description of the climate crisis. The birth of the Gates of Hell almost coincides with the report presented by the Club of Rome, one of the first detailed reports about how humankind was influencing and producing climate change. This was more than 50 years ago. “Gates of Hell” thus says that generations have displayed the bystander effect in relationship to the climate crisis.
Museumplein
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers.
90 x 120 cm
On January 23rd, 2021 the Dutch government announced a night curfew and in multiple cities across the country protests erupted. In Amsterdam the protests started at Museumplein and after riots started the police chased them through the streets of Zuid, the richer part of the city.
Most of the rioters weren’t people that lived in the lavish houses in Amsterdam Zuid. They were angry. Angry about the policies that our government made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic but also angry about the general state of politics in the Netherlands. Nostradamus is about the prophetic quality of fire, not merely natural fire but also the fires that are lit at protests and politically charged situations. Fire shows what the future can be if the present isn’t changed.
Minneapolis
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers, Crayon
90 x 120 cm
After the brutal killing of George Floyd on May 25th, protests and riots erupted across the USA. George Floyd had been the next victim of a culture of police brutality and systemic racism that has endured and been preserved in the USA. On June 1st there was also a protest in Amsterdam. It was the biggest protest I had been to. After the protest at the Dam, I spoke with a lot of people about what was happening in the United States. My little brother understood the outrage but he didn’t understand the looting and destruction of property. I told him that from my perspective rioters were right to loot and destroy, because when a life is worth less than property, and that your life can be taken away so easily by law enforcement because of the color of your skin, there is little else within your power to be seen and heard.
This painting is based on the picture of the Minneapolis police station that was set aflame in the night after the murder of George Floyd.
No Justice, No Peace
Notre Dame
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers
90 x 120 cm
The Notre Dame fire happened before I was capable of expressing myself through art, but it was always an ambition of mine to do it.
After I started with conceptualizing the Nostradamus collection this fire was one of the first ones that I decided to paint. On the one hand because of my ambition and to progress in the quality of my painting technique. On the other hand because after the fire had occurred, it only took 2 days before the richest people of the world started to donate exorbitant amounts of money to the French Church for the restoration of the building. The prophetic quality of fire showed me that when the world is burning, mankind will rush to restore something that they have built, rather than the natural world. €850 000 000 up in smoke.
West Wall
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers, Crayon
90 x 120 cm
In the beginning of spring, due to an accident, a tree caught fire near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jeruzalem. At the same time, many Jewish people were standing near the West Wall where they could see the fire. They started chanting and celebrating the fire, viewing it as a confirmation of their claim to the land.
I wanted to include this fire due to the polarisation and colonialism. But also because of my personal connection to Israel and Palestine. Zionism and Judaism are not necessarily connected, and the celebration of the loss of other people should never be deemed moral.
From the River to the Sea
Peace Walls
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers
90 x 120 cm
Historically, the Peace Walls have always been a place of protest in Belfast. But in the spring of 2021 it seemed as if Ireland had traveled back in time. Multiple factors proved to be reason for these protests, but most of the newspapers pointed to Brexit as the primary reason.
Because of its historical relevance and the existence of these walls for the past 50 years, I felt the need to include this occurrence in the Nostradamus series as well. The opposition between Protestants and Catholics, the original reason for the walls to be built, has now transformed into new opposition and polarisation; and a new cry for freedom.
Gulf of Mexico
2021
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers
90 x 120 cm
In the beginning of the summer of 2021 water was burning. This to me highlighted the impossibleness of what climate change is and how we are able to conceive it. The reason that the water caught fire was that an oil pipe burst. Fire fighters had a difficult time controlling the flames and the whole world got to see the imagery.
Climate change and global warming force humankind to move beyond that which they can imagine, or deem possible, because the reality of it all is far more inconceivable than any statistics or scientific evidence can present us.
Greece
2022
Acrylic paint, Acrylic markers, Crayon, Spray Paint
90 x 120 cm
When I started with the Nostradamus series, the plan was to make 7 paintings. However, the world kept on burning. But this piece would be my final piece. During the summer of 2021 most of the planet but also the south of Europe was ravaged by natural disaster. Drought, floods, and forrest fires swept over the planet.
In Greece, many people were evacuated due to the biggest forrest fires in years. This painting was inspired by a picture that I saw in a news article. It was a picture of an older women who was forced by fire fighters to leave her house because the flames would soon reach her house. She, however, did not want to leave. She was raised in this house and has lived there her entire live. She wanted to perish with her house and the memories she had of it.
I chose to not paint her, because for me it was important to bring across the message that this could be all of us. We all will perish with our house, planet earth, if we do not change our civilisation's course.
Chapter 5ive*
2022
Installation of multiple paintings
In this video I am walking through the art installation that I made as a final project for my ResearchWorks at het HEM this summer. The name of the exhibition was Chapter 5ive*. Together with 4 other talented artists I was invited to research and react on Chapter 5, which was about the Countryside.
For this art installation I used Nostradamus as a prologue to a possible global nuclear disaster. Warning Sign (2022), the artwork at the end of the video is the ending to this story.
For more information about this project, please contact me via this website or my Instagram, and I can send you my research paper.