Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam

Affordable Art Fair - Follow your art

I’m glad to announce that for the first time, I will participate in an art fair.

The 8th edition of the Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam will take place from Thursday 31st of October to Sunday 3rd of November 2013.

So if you happen to be in the neighborhood, please come by at booth D17.  There you will find Gallery “Pien Rademakers” who is representing my work as a “new talent”.

You can also see the work of two other new talents: Annick Meijer and Flokje van Lith.

Have fun and enjoy the fair!

 

For more information:

  • http://www.galeriepienrademakers.nl
  • http://affordableartfair.com/

AAF_Pien Rademakers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zomerexpo 2013

The ‘Gemeentemuseum Den Haag’ and the foundation Artworlds  organize, for the third time, the Summer Expo (Zomerexpo) in the Netherlands. This is the biggest visual arts exhibition an artist can enter by means of an open enrollment.

There are three locations you can enter:

-Loods 6 in Amsterdam

-Las Palmas in Rotterdam

-and TAC in Eindhoven

For each location there are two rounds. When you are selected in the first round, you can go to the second round in the evening.

I showed up in Rotterdam at noon with three of my computer manipulated photographs. In the first round two works of mine were selected. After a long wait and exhilarating day another jury chose one of my works in the evening. Needles to say I was very glad that they chose me as one of the artists. Out of 3000 submissions, 250 works of art were finally chosen.

The work will be showed at an online gallery, and in the Gemeente Museum of the Hague from the 8th of June until the 15th of September.

The event will be broadcast on national television. It’s a program called ‘Avro’s kunst uur’, so who knows I will be on tv (hope not 😉

See for more information:

ZomerExpo

 

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Expo: SOURCE

SOURCE is a photoexposition in Spant! Gallery in Bussum. Graduation projects of 6 photographers from various branches of the art will be presented, all 6 focusing on one common topic: the SOURCE of their inspiration. Let us all meet at the starting point.

SOURCE shows the work of the following photographers (including me): Sylvia Blokl; Maaike De Boer De Wild;Welmer KeesmaatEdwin Rontberg;Tomasz Wieja Fotoilustracja

The exposition is open from 2 February until 30 april at: ’t Spant!: Kuyperlaan 3 Bussum.

See for further information: http://www.spant.org

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Pic 4

Young contemporary art

I think it was a year ago, that I stumbled upon a book called “The Upset: young contemporary art”. I didn’t know it then, but it was going to have an impact on what I was doing with photography.

I was just walking in this bookstore, heading for the photography section, because I wanted to buy a book on photography techniques. While I was making my way through the bookstore, my eye caught this glimpse of  a tree trunk with an eye in it. It took a few seconds, before this image got processed in my brain, but when it did, it made me stop. I walked back to where I saw this tree trunk and  this is what I saw:

The_Apology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Ryden – The Apology

 

It was the cover of the book I just mentioned.

I don’t know why it made me stop, but it did. I’m trying to think of a rational explanation, but it was more of a feeling than anything else. Something started to ‘ resonate’, but what?

First of all, I think it is beautifully painted. But what struck me was that it has this child like quality to it. Almost cartoonish. Perhaps because you see a young girl, but it also evokes a sense of wonder and mystery you’d normally wouldn’t see in a piece of art. It’s almost fairytale like, but with a darkness commonly not associated with fairytales (at least the Disney version of it).

Also I normally I don’t associate figurative paintings with contemporary art. But here it is,  a ‘strange’ image in my hands  and something is shifting in my brain.

According to the book, Mark Ryden belongs to this art movement called “lowbrow” or “pop-surrealism”. It’s a movement that has it’s roots in the underground scene. In street art, Graffiti etc. It’s called “lowbrow” because it is the opposite of “highbrow”, meaning fancy, sophisticated, elitist or intellectual. It’s an form of art that developed outside the ‘academic’ world of the arts. To me it sounded more basic, more primal. Perhaps in a sense more real.

This book was like some sort of catalyst for me. A year and a half ago I was thinking really hard on what sort of photographer I wanted to be. Is it commercial photography? Art Photography? Documentary? Fashion? I was really looking hard for an identity. And here I was confronted with highly skilled artists that make all of these images filled with a sense of wonder. Artists who are still in touch with that ‘magical world’  we inhabit as young children. They still have that ability to see wonder around us.

It wasn’t a grand revelation or anything. But slowly I realised that I really had to follow my own dreams and visualise them. In part their work made me focus on what I wanted to do with my photography.

So instead of buying this photography techniques book, I bought this book, with all of these wonderful artists. Perhaps one of the best buys I ever did.

I have added more pieces of art by other artists in this book. You can see them below. I  hope you enjoy them. If you want to see more work you can find these here:

http://www.markryden.com

http://www.martinwittfooth.com

http://www.raycaesar.com

http://www.femtasia.nl/Home.html

 

Martin Witthfoot - Occupy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Witthfooth – Occupy

 

Ray Caesar-DayBreak

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ray Caesar – Daybreak

 

Femke Hiemstra - Line Of Faith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Femke Hiemstra – Line Of Faith

 

 

 

 

2012 International Photography Awards

Yes!!! I am very proud to announce that I have received four honorable mentions for three series of photographs from the International Photography Awards. There were over 18.000 entries from professional photographers around the globe.

You can read it in the following press release:

2012 International Photography Awards Announces Winners of the Competition

Edgar Verhoeven was awarded in the International Photography Awards Competition. International Photography Awards (IPA) has announced the winners of 2012’s competition.
Edgar Verhoeven was Awarded:

Honorable Mention in Fine Art – Portrait category for the winning entry”Commodification.”.

– Honorable Mention in Fine Art – Collage category for the winning entry“The great Outdoors.”

-Honorable Mention in Advertising – Product category for the winning entry “Appliance.”

Honorable Mention in Fine Art – Collage category for the winning entry”Appliance.”

ABOUT Winner:
I have graduated in June 2012 at the Photo Academy in the Netherlands. I make pictures of my imagination. Sometimes I use a camera and sometimes I don’t. I ‘bend’ reality and create a place where our environment is not rational or self evident. I believe we live in a world where efficiency and productivity are considered to be among the highest virtues in our consumption society. We conform to the expectations that society demands en trust that progress and technology (or scientific thought) will give us all the answers in life. That’s true to a certain extent, but there is also a downside. We also live in a world where religion, spirituality or nature play a secondary role. Reality is served in easy to digest pieces of information that we can consume. But at what cost? Perhaps our soul? Or our natural resources? How many people feel there’s something missing in their rich and comfortable lives or at work? Is there a paradox, that with an increase in technological communication like social media, there is also an increase in loneliness? We communicate more, but perhaps the quality of communication is less? Can we only look in a rational way at our world? Or is there still some mystery left? I ask myself these questions and look in wonder….. Edgar Verhoeven

ABOUT IPA:
The 2012 International Photography Awards received nearly 18,000 submissions from 104 countries across the globe. The Foundation’s mission is to honor master photographers, to discover new and emerging talent and to promote the appreciation of photography. Since 2003, IPA has had the privilege and opportunity to acknowledge and recognize contemporary photographer’s accomplishments in this specialized and highly visible competition. Visit www.photoawards.com

Contact:
Edgar Verhoeven:
info@edgarverhoeven.com
https://www.edgarverhoeven.com

IPA Contact
Jade Tran
Competition Director
International Photography Awards
jtran@iawardsinc.com

 

 

Dreaming with the camera

The following is a post written by Rommert Boonstra, a Dutch photographer and poet. He is known to be the one of the founders of imaginative photography in the Netherlands.

The post below is written in Dutch.

 

DROMEN MET DE CAMERA.

Over de wereld doen twee geruchten de ronde. Het ene luidt dat het einde der tijden nabij is en het andere dat we een gouden toekomst tegemoet gaan.
Een gouden toekomst vol ondergang en verval zou misschien een goed compromis zijn.
Blijft de vraag- Is er vooruitgang? Of gaan we met bekwame spoed achteruit? Lopen we hard of lopen we dood?

Er zijn in de geschiedenis van de wereld 39 Ferrarari’s 250 GTO geproduceerd. Ze gaan een stuk sneller dan de strijdwagen waarin Ben Hur zich verplaatste. Dat zou vooruitgang kunnen zijn. Behalve als je door zo’n Ferrari op topsnelheid geschept wordt. Voor de paarden had je misschien nog weg kunnen springen.

Ik heb ook bij de plofkip naar positieve ontwikkelingen geïnformeerd, bij een depressieve wegsmeltend ijskap, bij de glorieus oprukkende Sahel woestijn en bij een geleerde die net duizelig uit de deeltjesversneller tevoorschijn kwam. De antwoorden waren zeer divers.

Het grote voordeel van ondergang en verval is in ieder geval dat ze heilzaam zijn voor de kunst. Zie het prachtige werk van Edgar Verhoeven. Het sombere en het hilarische gaan hand in hand. Als we ten onder gaan, dan gaan we in ieder geval vol vrolijke verbazing ten onder.

If you are interested in Rommert Boonstra’s work, see the following link:

http://http://www.rommertboonstra.nl

From the vault: Classic Club Night

These were photographs for a project called “Classic Club Night”. This is an event where classical music meets urban music. It is a fun idea that the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra expand their classical horizon to melt it with some underground music.

So here they are: