In my work, I seek to capture the potential energy of transformative states of matter: liquidity, expansion, contraction, friction, fracture, sedimentation. I am intrigued by how a finished painting is an accumulation of actions, interventions, and decisions, a unique kind of logic that is visible but not necessarily immediately understandable. 

​

I work intuitively and attentively, sometimes gently directing the flow of paint and sometimes deliberately removing and reworking large portions of the painting. The painting thus develops through this dialogue between myself and the material, a dance between chaos and order. 

In a broader sense, I view my painting as a parallel to how we impose order and imbue meaning into the environments around us. Both of my home countries – the Netherlands and the United States – have national identities that are formed in part through a certain control over the landscape, either through conquest, settlement, or deliberate engineering. I am captivated by landscapes that reveal traces of their making, like rocks with visible sediment lines, canyons carved by ancient rivers, quarries that mar the earth or dikes that hold back the sea. My paintings are a place where I can enact a similar intervention, ultimately making something that is within my control but retains an element of wildness. 

In a sense, my process and the resulting work are representations of the notion that everyone looks in a different way and sees what they want to see. Like the titles –- which are often idioms or metaphors that refer to the landscape but also carry a hidden double or triple meaning – the paintings are visually reminiscent of the natural world but stop short of clear recognition, offering a path for each viewer to find their own meaning.