Maybe my work is about dealing with and processing the reality of everyday life. Dealing with your personal world, your small reality and the reality of the big, outside world, that sometimes overpowers your personal world. When a threat from outside is sensible, but not concrete.Chaos, the unknown, sensory overload, impending doom.
Stories, fantasy, escapism, absurdism, symbolism.
Contrasts.

My work is like a landscape where many things happen at once. Collages, drawings, and installations in which images pile up, intertwine, repeat, or contradict each other. There is often the suggestion of a story, but the plot remains elusive—like a dream that seems to have a narrative, but upon waking, only mood and fragments remain.I work with a mix of my own imaginative drawings, found images, and visual references—to fairy tales, animations, children’s art, mythical creatures, and the natural world. The result is a layered reality in which multiple worlds seem to exist simultaneously. My work balances on the edge of the familiar and the strange. Nostalgia clashes with something darker; the known brushes against the uncanny. An animal may speak, a plant may walk, a house may observe.It’s as if you’ve stumbled into a blooming garden as a child - where all things are alive and interact with each other - but no one tells you the rules.The worlds I build are often lush, colorful, and playful, yet there’s always something beneath the surface that begins to shift. A quiet threat, a moment of disorientation - as if the outside world is seeping in where it wasn’t meant to. I seek out that tension: between melancholy and humor, cohesion and chaos, between playfulness and seriousness.I’m fascinated by the way people try to make sense of what they see - how we find patterns in chaos, turn coincidence into narrative, and build myths around what we cannot fully grasp. My work doesn’t aim to explain or resolve, but to give shape to that very longing. It’s something we all share: the search for meaning in a world that keeps changing.I work associatively. One image evokes the next, without me always knowing where it's heading. The drawings grow - more and more elements appear, and rarely anything is taken out. There’s no fixed plan, it grows organically - while searching.What drives me is the desire to create worlds where everything can exist at once: clarity and confusion, humor and sadness, the delicate and the absurd. Worlds where you can wander freely, without needing to understand everything. Maybe that’s exactly what I’m looking for: a space to get lost, without needing to find the way back.

Education
2021-2023 Bachelor of Fine Art and Design in Education deeltijd - HKU, Utrecht
2012-2016 Bachelor of Fine Art - HKU, UtrechtAlso working as an art teacher in primary education and extracurricular art education.Exhibitionsupcoming
just working in the atelier at the moment :)2025
DE ARCADE ’25 - St. Gregor Klooster, Steyl
Floating from Earth or Falling Within - De Spelonk, Den Haag (solo)2024
Rest geen Rust - Croese Kunst keet, Utrecht (solo)
SwiepSwap Keiters en Kabouters - NAR, Utrecht
Hoog Catharijne POP-UP - OP&, Utrecht
Forever Young - Boterhal, Hoorn
Jubileumexpositie GETEKEND 2 - Galerie Getekend, Heerenveen
Grensloos Kunst Verkennen - De Wijk, IJhorst (solo at art route)2023
The horses flee their riders' victory - Kunsttraject - Etalages Zeeheldenbuurt, Amsterdam (solo)2022
Papertrails with Susanna Inglada - Kunstlinie, Almere (duo)
SwiepSwap Zwoele Zwembadhouse Editie - NAR, Utrecht
BIG ART - Hembrugterrein, Zaandam
Prospects - Art Rotterdam
Offline Exhibition - Tinimini Room, Dordrecht2021
Des espaces autres - Upscale Galerie, Rotterdam (solo)
Sticky Notes - Plaatsmaken, Arnhem
Kunstsalon IJL - Galerie Noord, Groningen
Where the winds mean nothing - Raam Maar, Rotterdam (solo)2019
Self Publish or be Damned - Academie Galerie, Utrecht
Art on Paper, Amsterdam - Galerie Getekend2018
Expo with Birgitt Busz - Galerie Gemeen-Goed, Abcoude (duo)
Streams of Consioussness - Drawing Centre Diepenheim2017
Mural - Swordfish & Friend - A014, Utrecht
Proomfile - EXbunker, Utrecht (solo)
Galerie Joghem, Sanquin, Amsterdam (solo)
FILLER - SIGN, Groningen2016
Expo Cultuur op de Campus - Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Selected By… Graduation Show Corrosia, Almere
Kleine Zaal: Imke Ruigrok invites: Bente Wilms - De Vishal, Haarlem
Exposure ‘16 - graduation show HKU, Utrecht2014
A Creature Called Soft Machine - Impakt - Academiegalerie, Utrecht
.unst - HKU Lange Vie, Utrecht
Luchtkastelen op Sypesteyn – Sypesteyn, LoosdrechtPrices and nominations
2016 . Nomination - Dooyewaard Stipendium
2016 . Nomination - Thesis award HKU
2020 . Mondriaan fund Stipendium for Emerging ArtistsPublications
2024 . GETEKEND 2 - jubileumkrant Galerie Getekend
2022 . Code name: Juni Rocket Racer Rebel Cortez - Murf/Murw Magazine no. 9
2019 . You wanna be our dog. - Special Edition Zine - Anders Zine
2018 . Central Exams Magazine for Visual Arts vmbo - Cito
2018 . Coverbeeld - Non-Issue #057
2016 . HKU Fine Art TWG catalogueSelf published
2021 . Where the winds mean nothing. (Zine)
2020 . Once Upon a DOOM: the Zine
2016 . ART A.K.A. THE WEIRD KID (and his misunderstood life) (Thesis)