Study in Green
Digital painting by Ruud van Empel

Ruud van Empel has been engaged in creating photographic collages since the 1980s, initially for posters and television leaders and later primarily as autonomous work. His most recent series, Study in Green, originated in the period 2003-2004 and consists of 18 photographic works. They give an excellent indication of how well Van Empel has developed in the past twenty years and how he has become an expert in using the computer as an artistic medium. ‘Sketching, cutting and pasting’, which at the outset formed such a fundamental part of the generation of his pictures, is now exclusively done by digital means. In contrast to the traditional collage techniques, these digital means allow him to compile every composition, every detail and every colour – in his latest photographic series Van Empel proves to be a first-rate colourist – and to disguise all artistic interventions. As such, his working method tends toward painting, although the final results bear all the physical features of photography. The images find their mysterious, occasionally oppressive power here, in the force field that Van Empel consistently manages to create between perfection and imperfection, reality and illusion. In his most recent photographic work, he even appears to conjure up worlds in which illusionism is transformed into reality. They transfix the viewer’s attention in the areas that are presented en focus and allow it to meander along imagery whose function is to foster feelings of discomfort. Van Empel’s fairytale woods are less innocent that they would seem to be at first sight. They appeal to sentiments and instincts that we would perhaps prefer to keep hidden deep down in our own nature. Van Empel stimulates us to feel them by enticing us into his world, where he disarms us before confronting us with what lies concealed behind the apparently naïve beauty, and behind our own reflection. In doing so, he reveals truths that transcend every topicality.

Study in Green forms the sixth series of single-theme photographic studies on which Van Empel has worked since 1996, and the first in which nature plays a leading role. Prior to this, he realized The Office (1996-2001), Frame Story (1998-2000), Study for 4 Women (2000), Laboratory (2002), and The Naarden Studies (2002). The separate photographic works can be understood as consecutive stages of a study in which Van Empel explores his themes – they are assigned the title of the study and a number. Within each study project, there ultimately remain only a few that can count on the artist’s approval. Most get stuck in the experimental stage or are rejected afterwards. In some cases, visual experiments find their way into new photographic works. The strict selection that he applies to his own work indicates that he is a master over his visual language. It ensures that he imbues his work with exactly the optimum tension, and denotes that he is capable of subtly playing his game with reality and surreality, ambience and suggestion, to the bitter end. In this, he never lapses into caricature or blatantly obvious symbolism, and he never allows himself to be enticed into using grotesque effects that can so easily be engineered with this medium. Just like the great artists before him, he keeps his eye on his target and knows just how important it is to restrain himself, to allow the suggestive power of the picture to do the work, and to maintain visual tension. Along with his great craftsmanship, it is this quality that makes him one of the most interesting artists of the present day and allocates his work permanent significance.

Han Steenbruggen
Curator of painting, Groninger Museum

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© COPYRIGHT 1996 - 2012 BY RUUD VAN EMPEL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED