Thomas Elshuis
It always starts with images; the slides from the archive. But I choose the slide with which I already have an idea. It is therefore a combination of image and idea that forms the starting point for a new work.
Thomas Elshuis via welikeart.nl
Thomas Elshuis (196, the Netherlands) is fascinated by the way people take pictures of their surroundings when on holiday and travelling. It is not the far-off places, but the actual act of taking the picture and the meaning of those images that interest him most. Travel photographs are used as a reminder, as a starting point for stories, as a catalyst for the memory. Elshuis inherited a visual archive in 1998 consisting of some 20.000 transparencies. All his work stems from this archive. He makes new constructions from the existing photographic images. In this way the old material gets a new life, referring to the way our memories tend to emerge; looming, floating and often ungraspable.
