Takeover #190 Thomas Meijerman
Thomas Meijerman: Instagram / Website
#190 (10/01 - 14/01, 2022) written by Esther van Zoelen
Thomas Meijerman looks at, experiences, anchors and shows the beauty of landscapes with their ongoing change and evolution through seasons and years. The artist graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Photography at the Willem de Kooning academy in 2020 and despite – or maybe thanks to – his mother being an artist, he says art is something he has to do in order to feel content. Nature is the source which co-operates to this longing.
“I discovered a certain way of telling stories within the medium of photography, but that isn’t the way I like to tell stories at the moment. So now I focus more on art, because this covers a wider scope.”
The visual evolution of landscapes captures Thomas’s attention and he is interested in the human impact related to this. This interest started in Bristol, where he made a landscape his own by photographing it and making small changes, as a way of dropping a flag of discovery. He wants to show the beauty and sublime quality of the landscape through its power. They should be a bit dangerous and easy to get lost in, emphasizing its higher position with respect to humans. One can see the landscape as a living creature that seems to be breathing.
“It is mainly about giving a visual representation of the investigation into my relationship with the landscape and a way of communicating with it.”
A conversation is created when Thomas’s interventions are changed by the landscape itself and the power of humanity and nature intertwine. The fight he sometimes experiences with nature is something personal, between him and, for example, the changing of tides. A previous work often serves as a starting point for the next. In the past he was questioning if one can stand above the landscape by creating their own. Recently this research has shifted to creating a relationship with the landscape.
“Sometimes the question is whether it is an interaction. Of course, the landscape cannot react directly, so you can’t really tell what it could feel. However, sometimes the landscape gives you sudden different influences that force you to change the way you work.”
Thomas wishes not to make a statement, but to raise a question, for example about creating your own landscape. Right now, he is working on posing those questions in the form of small paintings. During the Rizoom takeover he will dive deeper into different interventions he has made and maybe also show images of himself challenging the landscape as a small figure in the wind.
“I discovered a certain way of telling stories within the medium of photography, but that isn’t the way I like to tell stories at the moment. So now I focus more on art, because this covers a wider scope.”
The visual evolution of landscapes captures Thomas’s attention and he is interested in the human impact related to this. This interest started in Bristol, where he made a landscape his own by photographing it and making small changes, as a way of dropping a flag of discovery. He wants to show the beauty and sublime quality of the landscape through its power. They should be a bit dangerous and easy to get lost in, emphasizing its higher position with respect to humans. One can see the landscape as a living creature that seems to be breathing.
“It is mainly about giving a visual representation of the investigation into my relationship with the landscape and a way of communicating with it.”
A conversation is created when Thomas’s interventions are changed by the landscape itself and the power of humanity and nature intertwine. The fight he sometimes experiences with nature is something personal, between him and, for example, the changing of tides. A previous work often serves as a starting point for the next. In the past he was questioning if one can stand above the landscape by creating their own. Recently this research has shifted to creating a relationship with the landscape.
“Sometimes the question is whether it is an interaction. Of course, the landscape cannot react directly, so you can’t really tell what it could feel. However, sometimes the landscape gives you sudden different influences that force you to change the way you work.”
Thomas wishes not to make a statement, but to raise a question, for example about creating your own landscape. Right now, he is working on posing those questions in the form of small paintings. During the Rizoom takeover he will dive deeper into different interventions he has made and maybe also show images of himself challenging the landscape as a small figure in the wind.