Artist statement

Through story the world grows, because through story we learn.

There are many questions we ask ourselves in order to live our lives. We ask ourselves who to talk to, what to give our energy to, and we even ask ourselves what it means to be alive. Often, we ask these questions quietly, in our head, maybe to our family, but rarely do we shout them across the world. The answers may scare us. To find those answers anyway, we look to art. We look at stories, real and fictional, trying to find those like us.

When I was a child, I spent my breaks digging my little fingers in between the old bricks of my primary school. Out I pulled something white and hard, and in my head there was only one possibility to what those might have been: werewolf nails. I started to write the story of those werewolves, trying to figure out who they were and what business they had at my little old school. I was desperate for answers.

I built a universe inside my head as a way to cope with the world and to find my answers, and it became just as vivid as the one we live in. I took the people that lived inside my little universe and asked them questions, placed them in a story, and watched it unfold. It slowly started revolving around reason and logic. The ‘why’ had become the most powerful question.

Just writing wasn’t enough. I wanted to pull the creatures I saw into our shared reality, and so turned to music, wood, wire, fabric and clay to build worlds, create characters and craft creatures. Everything needed a reason to be, from the flower I chose to live atop a mountain to the amount of eyes something had.

I have a deep love for any creature I bring into our shared reality, knowing from what type of seed it grew, knowing what they’ve been through, what I put them through to find my answers. They have been unthinkably kind.

I always work from the small, as tiny as I can, then I let it find its footing, and nudge it forward. I follow the logic of its footsteps and find the place it lives and the story it’ll tell.

Education

Coming up in 2025
ArtEZ Conservatory
MA Sound of Innovation (July)

2023
LOI
BA-subject Educational Psychology

2022
ArtEZ
HP Matters of Demons, Ghosts, and Aliens

2022
ArtEZ AKI
BA Crossmedia Design [Cum Laude]

2017
LOI
BA-subject Teaching methodology
BA-subject Pedagogics 1
BA-subject Effective Communication

2016
ROC
MBO Mediadesign level 4

2014
London College of Communication
Introduction to screenwriting for film & tv

Publications & expositions

Publication 2024 ArtEZ
Jaarverslag page 33-37
Various poems with illustrations

Exposition 2023 Kunststation
Delden
Paracosm 1

Exposition 2022 Skulptur Galerie
Osnabrück
INDEX

Exposition 2022 AKI ArtEZ
Finals - Paracosm 1

Publication 2022
The Peculiar Life of Ian Grey

Publication 2020
50 Short stories of the unconscious mind

Publication 2007
No Drugs

Notable interests & Hobbies

Storytelling & world building

Neurodivergency & disability

Conceptual design & progress

Quantum physics & ontology

Music & composition