Loek van Vliet (1988) graduated at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague in 2010. Since then he works on long-term photographic projects about the experience of landscape. This results in exhibitions and books like: The Limes, the Landscape as Palimpsest; Earthly Windows, the experience of the European landscape throughout the ages; Sacred Grounds, quiet areas in the Netherlands and Flanders; Natural Climate Buffers. Through these works he conveys what it is like to be in these landscapes. His works contain a complex use of digital montage to enhance the experience of the image and the landscape.

His work is amongst others part of the Rijkscollection, the collection of the Dutch Senate, and the collection of the ministry of Foreign Affairs, all in the Hague, and the Art Collection of the University of Leiden. His work is supported through multiple grants, amongst which an Emerging Talent Grant by the Mondriaan Foundation. Since 2013 he is a teacher at the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague.

Others on Loek’s work:

De Limes, The Landscape as Palimpsest

You have to look closely to see that Van Vliet stacks the layers in the landscape in such a way that they become more visible. You see more than you could see at a glance in reality. ~ Jeroen Bos,
From: Financieel Dagblad 12-03-2022 (Dutch Financial Times)

Earthly Windows

From window to window, Van Vliet therefore switches from one mode of experience to another. It is precisely this switch that elevates his work beyond the random interpretation of a personal vision. […] The landscape he presents refers to the culture of old Europe. Because it is historical, it reveals itself in more than one form. With Earthly Windows, Van Vliet also takes a unique stance in this regard: his photos invite one to observe the world in multiple ways and from varying orientations – each time with an alternatively coloured view. ~ Art-Historian Dr. Wim Kranendonk. From the publication Earthly Windows

Intens play with Perspective
~ Marit Versteeg, From: Gooi en Eemlander 05-02-2020 (Dutch Newspaper)

Besides being an interesting exercise through time and space, with reflections on perspective and reality, Earthly Windows yields photographs that made me forget I was sitting on a couch with a book in my hands. Some images brought the landscape so near, I even forgot I was looking at a photograph. ~ Art Critic Merel Bem, May 2020.

Loek van Vliet photographs landscapes. Not the way they look, but how they feel. In this manner he gives us an image of how we have been experiencing landscapes throughout the centuries. ~ Jeroen Bos, From: Financieel Dagblad 29-02-2020 (Dutch Financial Times)

Sacred Grounds

Photographers like Awoiska van der Molen, Mischa de Ridder, Loek van Vliet and Ellen Kooi, as well as their predecessors, such as Wout Berger, in their new work, turn away their cameras from the city, harbors, industry, highway and the suburbs and look for the natural, green parts of Holland again. Although it is well known that all of the Netherlands is man-made, photographers turn these places into visions of pristine nature where there is also space for the sublime and the spiritual.
~ From: Landschaft, Umwelt. Kultur, On the New Topographics’ Transnational Impact, Museum fur Photographie Braunschweig.

In terms of our experience of landscape, as well as art that depicts landscape, this series is a sign of the times. ~ Maartje van den Heuvel, ‘Sacred Ground’ from the introductiontext of Sacred Grounds

I look at places where barely anything happens, that give an almost spiritual impression. ~ Peter van Tuyl, Sacred Grounds bookreview in magazine Fotografie