I start my work from an archive of images, mainly photographs I have taken myself. This visual material is created by travelling with a sense of wonder. A gaze that knows no hierarchy in the choice of subject. The photographs are printed and end up in the studio. This forms a fertile layer from which motifs emerge and work can grow. The work consists mainly of paintings, collages and drawings. This creates an ambiguous dialogue between the photographic starting point and the transformation into a painterly struggle. The result is alienation from the original image and a search for painterly and visual revelation of something I do not yet know. There is a relentless duality between the structure of the starting point (photograph) and the mutability of the painting. This duality is an essential part of my life. A constant duality on a social and personal level. A back and forth between the village where I grew up (Zaventem) and the place where I study (Ghent). Nostalgia and visions of the future do not seem to win out over each other. Two worlds that are in stark contrast and between which I cannot seem to choose. Because I believe in their symbiosis.