Willem Van Den Hoed

At first glance, Willem van den Hoed’s works seem to be technically perfect photographs, taken at the right place at exactly the right time. Only after studying them more intently do these sublime pieces reveal the timeless dimension artificially created by Willem van den Hoed. The photographer looks out from extravagant hotel rooms and photographs the view over an extended period of time. Then he digitally layers hundreds of photographs, working like a painter who spends weeks correcting and painting over fresh oils.

In his photographs, van den Hoed unites individual fragments of light, brings shadows of reflections to the fore, and celebrates architectural forms. The results are perfect masterpieces with an unreal atmosphere; we absorb their materiality and texture.

The Dutch photographer created the piece Room 3084 exclusively for LUMAS and used the square format to intensify his extraordinary visual language. In the end, van den Hoed combines an architect’s precise eye with an artist’s empathetic capacity for expression. The world he creates is more subdued and yet, in its stillness, even more expressive than reality – as though a gate were opening to another dimension. We can truly sink into this piece, losing track of the exact time of day and location.

“It is, in fact, painting with pieces of time,” van den Hoed comments on his creative process. In this case, the critical question is not whether or not this is art, but rather, “Is it still photography?”

Willem van den Hoed was born in 1965 and studied architecture at the Technical University in Delft, Netherlands. In 1998, he went into business for himself as an architect. Between 2000 and 2006, he increasingly began to concentrate on photography. His work has featured in exhibitions in The Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. Van den Hoed lives and works in Amsterdam and Seoul.