Yesterday, today, tomorrow. It is an inherent part of the human condition to think in timelines: where we’ve been, where we are, where we are going. But for Dutch artist, this is a limited perspective. “When I was a child I looked at the stars and I could really imagine space going on forever. I had panic attacks because it wasn’t just above, but also below, and left, and right,” she explains. “I could envision space that went beyond the boundaries of my mind.
“Then I found out about the theory of imaginary time, in which time is not linear, you can move around in it. Then I knew that however things happen, everything was going to be fine; I’m already there, it’s already happening.”Van der Vaart was a student of science and mathematics, forever absorbing information. When it came to her Masters, however, she strongly felt she needed to create, to put something out into the world.
Her professors at the Media, Arts and Design Faculty in Genk, Belgium, thought differently. They pushed her towards the medium and in 2011, she won the golden lens award at the 33rd International Photo-Festival in Knokke-Heist with an image depicting a boy on a bed, staring into nothing.Courtesy of the artist and Ingrid DeussIt would take leaving her studies to begin the process of developing a style.
Bodies became a recurrent theme, employed as a means to express an idea. Intuitively too, the photographer leaned towards landscapes. “In nature you can find beauty and also the opposite – horror,” she says. “When you’re quiet you let yourself become one with nature, you have all the answers. It’s not meditative, but true, honest and real.”Courtesy of the artist and Ingrid DeussHer oeuvre now encapsulates both bodies and landscapes, shot in analogue and black and white.
In a departure from her usual approach the collection includes a small number of prints in blue, to break the flow. The results are haunting and hypnotic; a series of intangible figures, floating in a world beyond our imagination.Courtesy of the artist and Ingrid DeussCourtesy of the artist and Ingrid DeussCourtesy of the artist and Ingrid Deuss