Tijn Meulendijks

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 Tijn Meulendijks

I am best known for my large-scale immersive installations that reinterpret and recreate the natural environment and processes within the gallery space. The natural world has always fascinated me and challenges me as it continuous to capture al of our imagination, my work is like being in and of nature.

By positioning organic elements as art objects I question the very nature of creativity and evoke a sense of being part of a natural world that is larger than us. At the same time, it is many of the perilous changes to our environment that are pressing us to look ever more closely and urgently at our impact upon it.

I cultivated a life long interest in botany, collecting and documenting plant remnants, soil, seeds, species of vegetation and other organic materials to use in my installations and works on paper. My installations are often ephemeral and consider the wonder and poetry of the natural world. Ultimately, the affect of the plant world upon human emotion is inspirational - a fundamental recognition of the life force around us.

My work is not about the end result alone, but about the process of making an artwork. It is thinking, meditating, caring. It crosses the boundaries of contemporary art and natural sciences. This symbiosis of the close analytical observation of a botanist and the sensitive aesthetic perceptiveness of an artist responds to a deep knowledge of the source of inspiration, the motivations and the use of materials. I look to my close environment surroundings: the earth, rocks, landforms, plants and vegetation, including the minutiae of the landscape, the humble, the almost hidden and often overlooked.

Respect and fascination for botanical materials and the natural world methodically guides my compositions showing various stages of natural processes and organic elements. After I finish an installation it usually provokes a sense of beauty, awe, and wonder but this is also a continuous experience showing various stages of natural cycles, decay and botanical rebirth.

I began my career in my birthplace, The Netherlands. After obtaining a masters degree in floral design my work crossed countries and ever since I have been working, thinking and sensing the human perception of nature.


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