Ruud van Empel (seen above with one of his tree compositions at Beetles Huxley Gallery in London) is a Dutch photographer whose collaged approach is demanding and unique. Born in 1958 in Breda in the Netherlands he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Breda between 1976 and 1981. He now lives and works in Amsterdam. His wok is sold and exhibited world wide and he has pieces in many international museums and art galleries.
After leaving college he started to create a new realism with the many photographs he took using traditional cut and paste techniques with some re-touching. It is fair to say that he re-invented photography at this time, adding a genre that did not really exist in the manner in which he explored it. He continued with this method into the 1990's but switched to digital processing in 1995.
Unlike some who try to achieve a surreal approach in his finished pieces he wants to maintain a naturalistic realism in his work, even when the juxtapositions seem odd. He is constantly taking pictures to work with and, whilst many of his pieces consider the natural surroundings, he often uses people and especially children in his work.
Highly contrived and vividly coloured, van Empel’s photographs evoke the theatrical and uncanny, mirroring scenes we recognise with a disturbing, dreamlike quality. Birds and butterflies appear in odd sizes as part of a forest scene and yet the scenes are familiar to us.
The detail and care taken in the placement of objects, in the creation of light and space as well as the careful colouring shows how intensely his pictures are worked. You can find out more at his website https://ruudvanempel.nl/
...and here with a short video of him at work thanks to his London representatives Huxley Parlour Gallery https://huxleyparlour.com/artists/ruud-van-empel/
No comments:
Post a Comment