Subscribe to our Collectors Mailing List to receive invitations to exclusive events, information about our artists and exhibitions as well as exclusive artwork releases.
Ruud van Empel
At first glance, the images of Ruud van Empel (*1958) look like photographs, yet each one is assembled from hundreds of fragments. The Dutch artist, who trained in graphic design at St. Joost School of Art and Design in Breda, began with analogue photocollages before turning to digital image editing. With series such as »Study in Green«, »World«, »Moon« and »Venus«, he achieved his international breakthrough in the early 2000s, and museums from the Groninger Museum to the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego have since devoted solo exhibitions to his work.
Van Empel combines photography, digital editing and painting into hyper-realistic, dreamlike compositions. His best-known works show children in lush, idealised landscapes, staring at the viewer with an unsettling directness. Behind the apparent paradise lie questions of identity, innocence and the tension between nature and culture. His precise use of light, shadow and colour recalls the Dutch masters of the 17th century, from Jan van Eyck to Vermeer, while his series »Landscape« and »Pollution« draw on modernists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Ruud van Empel is represented exclusively in Germany by CAMERA WORK Gallery.
Exhibitions
2025 · CAMERA WORK Gallery, Berlin
2025 · Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi
2025 · San Diego Museum of Art
2023 · Stedelijk Museum Breda
2021 · Van Gogh House, Zundert
2019 · Museum Belvédère, Heerenveen
2013 · Fotografiska, Stockholm
2013 · FOMU – FotoMuseum Antwerp
2012 · Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
2011 · Groninger Museum, Groningen
Collections
FNAC – Fonds national d’art contemporain, Paris
Generali Foundation, Vienna
George Eastman Museum, Rochester
Groninger Museum, Groningen
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Stedelijk Museum Breda
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Awards & Honors
2017 · Artist of the Year, American Friends of Museums in Israel, New York
2013 · Oeuvre Award, City of Breda
2001 · H.N. Werkman Award
1993 · Charlotte Köhler Award
1981 · St. Joost Award