herman de vries
It’s language that splits the world in two. We use terms like here and there, you and me, nature and culture, and we make due with imprecise words like biomass.
herman de vries via De Volkskrant, 1998
herman de vries (1931, the Netherlands) shows nature as she is: he rubs soils on paper or arranges autumnal leaves however they fall. He presents natural objects and processes in chance assemblages, with restrained aesthetics that reveal almost no personal, artistic touch. His work shows great respect for nature and a desire for radical simplicity and awareness.
Rubbed onto the sixteen sheets of 'from earth', for instance, are soil samples from the Dutch island of Texel to Australia. The color pigments typify these places and reveal our natural environment’s great diversity.
