Background information

In his own words

“I photograph the inconspicuous up close: the peel of a fruit, a scouring sponge, dried paint, moss. On the computer I combine these macro photographs with my own drawings, layer upon layer, until it is no longer possible to tell what was photographed and what was drawn. A sponge becomes a cosmic web, a fruit peel a primordial sea. That tipping point is what interests me: the idea, found in ancient myths and mystical traditions, that the small and the great are made of the same fabric. Recurring forms such as transparent spheres, vertical lines, trees and rivers stand for that interconnectedness. For me, compassion begins with that awareness.”

Background

Since 1988, Velthuizen has immersed himself in Theosophy. This movement arose in the late nineteenth century around Helena Blavatsky and seeks the common core of religions, myths and philosophy. Around 1900 it inspired artists such as Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint, as well as the architect H.P. Berlage, to make the invisible visible. Velthuizen builds on that tradition with contemporary means.

Central to his work is the idea that everything is alive: from atom to galaxy, everything is a form of consciousness, and everything is interconnected. He finds this idea again and again, each time in different images and words: in Buddhism and Hinduism, in Norse mythology and Greek philosophy, and in the Sufi poetry of Attar and Rumi. He also recognises it in astronomy: the cosmic web resembles the network of our brain cells.

In his images, these ideas take on a fixed form. The vertical lines running through every work stand for streams of consciousness, the transparent spheres for worlds within worlds. The world tree stands for the coherence of all life. Each work is accompanied by a quotation from one of these traditions.

For Velthuizen, compassion follows from this interconnectedness. If everything is connected, no one can grow alone. An image that has always stayed with him comes from the Mahabharata: the hero Yudhishthira, who refuses to enter heaven because his dog is not welcome there. That is why his work bears the overarching title Thoughts on Compassion. It is not a message imposed on the viewer, but an invitation to pause and reflect. Velthuizen does not see his works as depictions of reality, and everyone is free to interpret them in their own way.

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