Bas Meeuws este un tânăr artist fotograf olandez, ale cărui lucrări sunt, în marea lor parte, reinterpretări digitale ale artei picturale tradiționale olandeze. Anul acesta, Bas Meeuws și casa de parfumuri Diptyque au colaborat, rezultatul fiind o colecție de șase parfumuri florale marca Diptyque, într-o ediție limitată numită "Impossible Bouquets", ce poartă semnătura vizuală a lui Bas Meeuws.
To look at the flowers of Bas Meeuws you have to slow down your gaze. If you look too rushed, you'll just see a vase of flowers, and that's that. If you look better, you will see that the flowers all have a great beauty. You see the light sheen on a leaf, the graceful bow of a stem. Your gaze touches petals, insects and leaf veins, wanders through the landscape behind the flowers, and lingers in the vase, with its pronounced shape and design. Now you start to notice that things are wringing: the proportions between the flowers are strange, the play of light and shadow has something enigmatic.
Good looking is for the eye what the tasting of a refined dish is for the tongue. The work of Bas Meeuws tempts you to use your eyesight for pure sensory pleasure.
Our view follows the artist's gaze. Meeuws has a keen eye for the wealth of shapes, colors and textures of flowers, insects and birds. He looks at it intensively, whether in his own backyard, in a city park, the gardens around the Muiderslot, the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, or the grand nature of Taiwan. Camera, software and printing techniques are extensions of the unsurpassed human eye. He uses technology to return what he has seen to us, the viewer. See, say his silent flower still lifes, how beautiful it is. A feast for the eyes.
Those who take the time to wander through the incredibly detailed floral compositions with a sharper eye will also initiate a stream of associations and thoughts. Flowers get an individual presence, with their shape that is powerful and delicate at the same time. You marvel at the complex architecture of a rose, the refined construction of a lily of the valley, the moist sheen on a deep red tulip leaf. If you see a number of photos in succession, you notice the enormous variety of species.
The perfect beauty of flowers is intensified by its transient nature. Where life is so exuberant, the thought of death is never far away. A dissonant wilted flower or a threatening cloudy sky brings friction into the image, and a slight unrest in the mind.
Your thoughts also inevitably go to 17th century Dutch flower still lifes, which you might have passed by when you saw them hanging in a museum. If you come across them again, you look at them better, this time you're trying to get as close as possible.
The pleasure of looking expands from art to reality. With a view honed by the flower still lifes, you also look better at the crocuses on the roadside and the forget-me-nots at the water's edge. Looking at art practices you in noticing the beauty of nature, in all its vulnerability. This makes the photos of Bas Meeuws also a silent call for an attentive, protective approach to our natural environment.
Look, enjoy, and look again.
Anneke van Wolfswinkel, writer and art critic
Good looking is for the eye what the tasting of a refined dish is for the tongue. The work of Bas Meeuws tempts you to use your eyesight for pure sensory pleasure.
Our view follows the artist's gaze. Meeuws has a keen eye for the wealth of shapes, colors and textures of flowers, insects and birds. He looks at it intensively, whether in his own backyard, in a city park, the gardens around the Muiderslot, the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, or the grand nature of Taiwan. Camera, software and printing techniques are extensions of the unsurpassed human eye. He uses technology to return what he has seen to us, the viewer. See, say his silent flower still lifes, how beautiful it is. A feast for the eyes.
Those who take the time to wander through the incredibly detailed floral compositions with a sharper eye will also initiate a stream of associations and thoughts. Flowers get an individual presence, with their shape that is powerful and delicate at the same time. You marvel at the complex architecture of a rose, the refined construction of a lily of the valley, the moist sheen on a deep red tulip leaf. If you see a number of photos in succession, you notice the enormous variety of species.
The perfect beauty of flowers is intensified by its transient nature. Where life is so exuberant, the thought of death is never far away. A dissonant wilted flower or a threatening cloudy sky brings friction into the image, and a slight unrest in the mind.
Your thoughts also inevitably go to 17th century Dutch flower still lifes, which you might have passed by when you saw them hanging in a museum. If you come across them again, you look at them better, this time you're trying to get as close as possible.
The pleasure of looking expands from art to reality. With a view honed by the flower still lifes, you also look better at the crocuses on the roadside and the forget-me-nots at the water's edge. Looking at art practices you in noticing the beauty of nature, in all its vulnerability. This makes the photos of Bas Meeuws also a silent call for an attentive, protective approach to our natural environment.
Look, enjoy, and look again.
Anneke van Wolfswinkel, writer and art critic
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