The artist duo Nicole Driessens and Ivo van den Baar have been working together since 1999. Their artistry has evolved around the question of how the reality of their immediate environment can be turned into art. The central value of their work is research into how this is possible. Which images from their reality can be transformed into art and what then is the meaning of the resulting work and the meaning of artistry itself? Is it about engagement, an indictment or a purely visual statement? The readymades of bulky waste, dead-ridden pigeons or withered bouquets found on the street are the traces of human existence. These are contemporary versions of the classic still life, such as Vanitas, which points to the temporality of our existence. All this forms a visual database, which talks about man’s constant search for a place on earth to live.
Migration is a constantly recurring subject as a result of their own traveling existence as artists, but even more because of the social question about the meaning of the continuous migration movements of people in and outside Europe as a result of poverty, wars, natural disasters or economic pressure. Which images are linked to this, in their immediate vicinity of Rotterdam and elsewhere? The Felt Plants, City Scapes, Traces and Dunkirk series are a direct result of this.