Ruud van Empel – Photoworks 1995 – 2010

This rare and out-of-print exhi­bi­tion cata­logue, published in conjunc­tion with the Groninger Museum, surveys fifteen years of work by Dutch photog­ra­pher Ruud van Empel (b. 1958), a pioneer in digi­tally constructed imagery.

Van Empel’s metic­u­lously composed photographs are created from hundreds of frag­ments of digital photos, layered and assem­bled into seam­less, hyper­re­al­is­tic scenes. The result is a vivid and uncanny world — lush, para­disi­a­cal envi­ron­ments inhab­ited by chil­dren and adoles­cents, portrayed as ideal­ized figures of inno­cence and vulnerability.

But beneath the surface beauty lies a more complex narra­tive: inno­cence is fragile, and van Empel’s dream­like settings often hint at an impend­ing loss or disrup­tion. The book includes essays by Deborah Klochko, Oscar van den Boogaard, and Ruud Schenk, offer­ing insight into van Empel’s process and the psycho­log­i­cal under­cur­rents of his work.

Profusely illus­trated and beau­ti­fully printed, this first edition cata­logue is an essen­tial addi­tion to any collec­tion of contem­po­rary photog­ra­phy or digital art.