In May 2025, I invited some friends over to the studio to create new works for my portfolio. 

It had been quite some time since I last shot anything, because I’d been going through a very 

intense period of therapy while I was also caring for my seriously ill mother. Both of which 

nearly took all of my time and energy.

Still, somehow, I managed to find the strength and motivation to begin again. And soon I was 

inviting more and more crazy talented beautiful people into my workspace in Amsterdam.

Combining the care for my mother with the amount of shoots I was organizing, turned out to 

be quite a balancing act, as I was constantly travelling up and down between my hometown and 

the studio. But in some mysterious way, things fell right into place and the process even inspired 

me to consider transforming the new works into a project of their own, perhaps a magazine, 

or even a book.

Then, tragedy struck hard. 

During one of the shoots, my mother was rushed to the hospital, once again.

In some strange way, the hospital visits had become part of our routine, as they occured ever so 

terribly frequent. Only this time, sadly, my mother was never to return home again.

She did however, see most of the new works I made. 

And I’ve come to recognize how proud she was, not only of what I had managed to accomplish 

during the difficult times we had been going through, but also of how far I had come as an artist over the years.

As I continued to work on the project while witnessing and helping my mother in her painful  

journey, the theme and inspiration for this project became clear: hope for what lies ahead.

It is inspired by all the sweet and wonderful people that bothered to come over to the studio, to 

show me their honest and sincere selves. I want to thank them for sharing their beautiful, often 

touching stories. For sharing their passions and their fears, for telling me about their dreams for 

the future. I truly hope, that most of them will become reality. 

But most of all I am driven by my mother’s everlasting positivity and strenght. I deeply admire 

her appreciation for the simplest of things, as her world grew smaller and smaller.

On practically every single picture she’s smiling, she seemed to be in an almost nonstop peaceful happy state. 

I’m highly inspired by her faithful belief in a brighter tomorrow, despite the fact that her health 

situation went worse and worse rapidly.

Even from all the fucking hospital beds she was a constant and ever present support, telling me 

not to worry, to continue to work on the project instead of visiting her: 

‘Geen zorgen maken, slaap ook lekker.’