OUR BODY
The first thing that stands out in this series of six works is that the people in these world-famous paintings, such as Vermeer's Milkmaid, are naked. Because these iconic personalities are naked, they are partly stripped of their personality and you suddenly see 'ordinary' people of flesh and blood. Nevertheless, the title tells a different message about the body. The title is therefore the starting point for creating these works, and is essential for the message:
I am not my personality
I am not my body
I am Spirit
INFINITE CONSCIOUSNESS
With this work I am telling you that you are not a body. You are the observer of the body. You are not a 'little I' that dies after one minute or 100 years as a bag of skin and bones. You are infinite consciousness that experiences through the temporary 'vehicle' that is our body.
By identifying with our body and our personality, we deny our true Self. With this expansion of consciousness I want to invite the viewer to allow a greater realm of possibility and probability than what is visible.
HISTORY OF ORIGIN
The series ‘I am not my body’ came about thanks to an invitation I received to participate in an exhibition with the theme ‘nude’ in Heusden. This forced me to think about this subject that initially did not inspire me. The only meaningful path I wanted to take was to tell the ‘naked truth’. Who are we really in essence: we are not the body, we are spiritual energy.
The question of how she could portray the phenomenon of ‘Spirit’ within the theme of nudity kept me busy for months.
In the end, it was an inspiration that came to me just before I fell asleep: to strip world-famous paintings of their clothing, and with it of a piece of their identity. To my surprise, I did not find a comparable concept on the internet.