Artist: Theo Bos

Hahnemühle Baryta print, size 90x120cm, mounted on dibond incl. floating frame, Edition of 5  (+ 2 A.P.).

Theo Bos (1959, Pijnacker) was educated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He works as a photographer for various clients.
In recent years he has concentrated largely on his visual artistry. With an emphasis on landscape photography and photography of seascapes.

Returning to the same places over and over, to capture them at different times of the day and from different  points, Bos’s photographs illustrate his patient observation of the landscape and his drive to not only document the landscapes he photographs, but to understand them. In search of abstraction in the dune landscape.

“Jealousy might be a big word, but there is certainly some envy: I think painters can deal with reality more freely and expressively than we photographers.
Unrealistic use of color, mocking perspective, ignoring material expression, condensing time, exchanging reality for abstraction; it is all possible in photography too – but it quickly looks overdone.
The latter is no reason to leave it there as a photographer.
For many years, I concentrated on introducing abstraction into my previously fiercely realistic landscape photographs when I stumbled across a recently revitalized stretch of dune in Meijendel’s winter nature reserve (north of The Hague, between Scheveningen and Wassenaar). Where I actually managed to make a successful abstract landscape photo after all this time. (In my opinion so successful, because the landscape reality remained intact) ”.

“I had known for a long time that it was possible; In his paintings of the nature around Bergen, the artist Edgar Fernhout had shown enviously how he had developed there as a painter towards abstraction. However, I did not get further than some reasonable detailed shots of patterns in the sand, which unfortunately I could not get translated into the much larger scale of an entire landscape. Since the first winter photo, the dune landscape has been an important theme in my work. My attitude to this landscape has changed fundamentally since then. I’m still looking for abstraction, but less compelling. There is a simple reason for this: the landscape is stronger than I am and cannot be imposed just like that (abstraction). It has a power of its own that sometimes coincides with what I want. But if that is not the case, I can jump high or low, that does not make a good photo. Then I have to follow. And I do that with pleasure ”.

Theo about his work: “My living and working area is the city. The city that is often defined today as a “mental space”, primarily as an image we carry of it in our heads. But at the same time, that city is of course also a reality. It is the demanding place where we physically move around and literally take our space. In the midst of others who do the same. When I am tired of that, you will find me in the dunes, by the sea or elsewhere in the country. I don’t always go far, but far enough to break free from the constantly pushing society. Then I find the space to experience and capture the landscape. Rest, repetition and remarkably small nuance differences determine my experience of these places. Here no flight into “mental space” is required to be one with it. The 24-hour economy with its emphasis on speed and incessant communication is out of the question here, allowing me to surrender to the silence in my head and the landscape to guide me. ”