Works / 2023 / 2024
‘Women give life. We build with the rocks from the earth. And in the end everything falls..’
Crayons and Pastels on photographs I made on road-trips and portrait-sessions. I also use city-webcams, old creative commons films and Google streetview to create the initial image. The photos are printed very small on cheap copy-paper to induce little mistakes on purpose when I put the colors on with the pastels and crayons. Furthermore the copy-paper has a very peculiar texture when the ink of the printer is put on it, a bit like the texture of an 8mm filmstrip. If the coloring process is finished I make a high resolution reproduction of the work with a macro lens so the end result is a photograph.
We Don’t need roads.. 2022 / in progress
Photographing landscapes at odds with the new and the now.
The Blaze 2019 – 2021
The treasure has been found; the secret is still out there… This is my photographic solution to the Forrest Fenn treasure hunt
Anonymous Contacts 2016 / 2017 / 2018
I am willfully removing myself from the slipstream of life; I am making myself into a constant witness, someone who lives to see the lives of others, not to be seen myself.
(Quoted freely after Hanya Yanagihara, “loneliness belongs to the photographer”, the New Yorker. July 10, 2016)
I am moving through the world, hoping for anonymity, hoping I am able to humble myself enough to see and record what the rest of us, preoccupied with our hectic everyday lives won’t see. As is the case in almost all of my work, I am not interested in pure registration or a factual approach of the things I am photographing. The objects and subjects which I photograph remain veiled. They are part of a world in which the distinction between dream and reality is not stable; Time has become diffuse.
Ghost for a year II 2015 / 2016
‘When I’m shooting I almost feel like a ghost. It’s as if I am present but at the same time I’m not. I’m more like a voyeur of what happens in the “real world”. Passers-by are looming and disappearing in light and shadow like phantoms.
Car-Nudes 2012 / 2013
(Excerpt from Foam editions): In his series Car Nudes(2012) Maarten van Schaik explores the beauty of cars. For Van Schaik, who personally does not drive, the car is a tempting and fascinating object. In his colourful photographs Van Schaik goes beyond just capturing the shape of the car, his photos transform into abstract images.
Mirage 2014
“The city of Las Vegas in itself is a mirage. Seen from the desert it’s blurred in the soaring heat, a fata morgana. Furthermore the promise to win big is all an illusion, yet everybody believes in the dream. When I’m out there photographing, I’m constantly trying to capture that illusion”
Postcards from the other side of the fence 2013 / 2014
At the time of this series I didn’t have the money to go to my beloved Las Vegas, so I Google street-viewed for hours and hours and made screenshot pictures as if I was there. Captain Beefheart, who lived most of his life in the Mojave desert inspired me with his music, playing constantly through my laptop speakers. The title of this series is derived from a lyric by him in which he sings: “Music from the other side of the fence..” These photographs / postcards are taken from the other side of the fence; The fence being the Atlantic Ocean.
Las Vegas 2005 / 2011
Conversation at the poker table in the Mirage casino: ” You know that this 5 dollar chip is worth 25 dollars on Ebay right? Might wanna keep it in your stack, go online and sell it.” ” Thanks, but no thanks man, I’d rather be out here in the real world.”
Modern men 2010
Ah, those modern men.. always wandering and wandering…
