Vanitas IX

About Annet van der Voort

WILTING SPLENDOR Photographer Annet van der Voort currently calls her atelier a floral laboratory. Here she observes the transformation of tulips, which she keeps in order to use them in their various states of expiration for her art. Her technique for producing images is modern and completely without camera. In a complex process, she scans the wilting splendor and in doing so creates a

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

WILTING SPLENDOR

Photographer Annet van der Voort currently calls her atelier a floral laboratory. Here she observes the transformation of tulips, which she keeps in order to use them in their various states of expiration for her art. Her technique for producing images is modern and completely without camera. In a complex process, she scans the wilting splendor and in doing so creates a special visual space that best corresponds to her understanding of vanitas, the philosophical idea of the transience of everything mundane. Her scanograms are a modern variation on the floral painting of Holland’s gilded age.

Tulips became objects of desire in the seventeenth century. Their bulbs were auctioned at the highest prices. To show how the bulbs would flower, splendid paintings of the flora were commissioned. A true cult emerged around the floral status symbol, and thus the tulip made its way into the halls of art history. Today the flower paintings and contemporary still lifes rank among the zenith of Dutch painting.

The tulip growers outdid themselves with new color variations, but the highest goal was to create a black version. An absurd idea, it may seem – but perhaps logical when one considers the tulip’s ephemerality: blossoming beauty destined to deterioration.

Van der Voort’s work has a particular connection to that of Amsterdam’s painter Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). Both include insects, butterflies, and other small animals in their floral compositions as essential elements. But what Ruysch employed to heighten the sense of reality, Voort consciously uses to establish a living counterpoint, to create equilibrium with the tulip’s wilting splendor.

Horst Klöver

VITA

Annet van der Voort was born in The Netherlands. In 1987 she began her studies in visual communication at the Fachhochschule in Dortmund and received her designer’s degree in 1993. She taught classes at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1998 and 1999. In addition to her artistic work, van der Voort is also a freelance publicist. She lives and works in Drensteinfurt, Germany.