©Mariska Karto – 2015
The soul collector takes advantage of those in need of help. Generates wealth through the need of others. Become richer from someone else’s misery or need. The soul collector has been around for centuries and is among us. Among refugees, the poor, among all areas.
There is 1 power equal to death. And that’s love.
As a resistant power to Xenophobia, another power had to be created against all that violence. And that is love.
But be warned… love is very, very close to hate..
It can influence and play with our feelings to the other extreme. That explaines the name Utopia.
This fresco shows current issues in our society. At first sight, a classical fresco, but on closer look, it shows its time-travel, to our complex issues in current time.
In this contemporary fresco you see a steam pipe. The polluter. Humanity is trapped in the steam pipe pollution, smog/ CO2.
Within the fresco form various stories can be seen visualized in stories of absurdism, surreality, emotions and metaphors.
It is visible, man does not take it serieus with nature, nature is trampled underfoot.
The opposite can also be seen, man who wants to cherish nature, a piece of mushroom (symbolic mushroom) and ultimately has to pay a lot of money for this peace of nature.
The fall through garbage can be seen in the centre of the crowd. The smog that is left behind when we fly, when we travel, by the woman with her travel bag. Pink mushrooms stand for artificial nature but which ultimately do not provide a solution.
Chilling results in waste, which pollutes our environment and creates an unpleasant living environment. There are quarrels, there are fights.
In this contemporary fresco, the diverse consequences and connections made visual of what ultimately happens if we don’t take care of our world and climate.
I consciously chose the shape of a fresco, precisely because CO2 is in the air and the historical fresco is also a means to depict humanity/social community throughout history.
Foto oplage 10 + 2 AP
Xenophobia
Xenophobia arose during a period when things were not going well for me.
In order to resist these dark feelings, in order to process, I have converted it to visualization. At this time there was a dramatic Exodus of refugees to Europe. All the hate, all the darkness, all the fighting I have put them into this work with the aim of giving the refugees a voice of all their despair, the face of death, they had to deal with, every hour.
In the middle of this chaos, in this massive entanglement, there seems to be no solution, hopelessness. No prospects.
But, by placing the viewer outside of the framework of the fresco, another different perspective exist. A perspective which enables us to find tools, right in the middle of this hopelessness.
We find tools to let life win back its territory.
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About her War Project: “Why to create these difficult photohypercollages? Because official studies into how wars arise have shown that they arise silently. Polarization and hatred are examples of silent hate influences . Let’s look at the past and learn from it. “
This is my First Citylandscape.
The work The Hague/Delft shows the evolution of Delft and the Hague. Delft, historic city of the royal family and The Hague, city of Dutch gouvernement of the Netherlands. In a way this is a work of Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The influence of the churches in its historical context and the central government role of the Hague , as the guardian of peace in society, which its function is to ensure that there are no issues and quarrels on its tower and home of many people, hard times for this tower in Covid19, at the moment. There is an absence of humans. As if we are looking at a mysterious image just after something has happened. How strangely realistic this vision has become!
(Photo’s Delft, The Hague, Dutch polders, Dutch landscape)
When looking at the future, changes in climate and landscape will bring new forms of construction. The Netherlands is deep below sea level, will the country have to build higher into the sky?
How will the relationship between city and nature look like? What will be our response to extreme weather?
(Photo’s Friesland, Amsterdam, Den Bosch, Gouda, Delft, Dutch Polders, Mills Kinderdijk/Zeeland, Pijnacker, Lisse bollenvelden and several nature/landscape shots Netherlands)
How does a landscape of Rembrandt look like 300 years later? I have documented what Rembrandt showed then with brush and paint, I did now with modern mediums; photography and digital techniques. I photographed photo’s from cities and landscapes all over Europe and combined them in a hyper-collage, into one final image using digital techniques. In this image we recognize Rembrandt’s wordly landscape, influenced by contemporary times.
The work clearly shows progress over the years, but that has also left its mark. New questions arise…How will this affect our landscape…? I photographed the evergreen grass in yellow dry situation in a very dry time here in the Netherlands.
(Photo's: Brussel, Italy several cities- Tuscaney landscapes, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Delft, Austria Linz, Greece, Spanish Hills, dutch polders, Rotterdam, Venice statues, The Hague, Ardennen woods)
Contemporary Fresco’s and large works
I have worked at this project from 2013 till now. My fresco’s tell a story, not a story of a single person, but a story of our world. Our old world and our new world, blended together. It was a lot of work to create them, but only with love for our world, fresco’s, photography and photoshop I was able to re-create the glory of old fresco’s again…
All is photographed and processed by myself (models, surrounding, background, animals, accesoires etc) I want the complete work to exist from my hands and mind. Creating fresco’s are time consuming, it takes about more than a year to create to about a half year. I’m not working in a team, I create alone and all is done by myself.
“In my fresco’s, you can see chaos, melancholy, death and also love asks its sacrifices in most of my fresco’s. That’s what we see with our eyes. In reality, you see the reflection of eternal struggle. (For example: In soulcollector – refugees exploited and Xenophobia speaks for itself…). It’s the battle of life itself, our life, right at this moment – the difficulties in our contemporary life expressed in old masters frescoes.
In the middle of this chaos, in this massive entanglement, there seems to be no solution, hopelessness. No prospects.
But, by placing the viewer outside of the framework of the fresco, another different perspective exist. A perspective which enables us to find tools, right in the middle of this hopelessness.
We find tools to let life win back its territory.
Xenophobia arose during a period when things were not going well for me.
In order to resist these dark feelings, in order to process, I have converted it to visualization. At this time there was a dramatic Exodus of refugees to Europe. All the hate, all the darkness, all the fighting I have put them into this work with the aim of giving the refugees a voice of all their despair, the face of death, they had to deal with, every hour.
In the middle of this chaos, in this massive entanglement, there seems to be no solution, hopelessness. No prospects.
But, by placing the viewer outside of the framework of the fresco, another different perspective exist. A perspective which enables us to find tools, right in the middle of this hopelessness.
We find tools to let life win back its territory.
In this contemporary fresco you see a steam pipe. The polluter. Humanity is trapped in the steam pipe pollution, smog/ CO2.
Within the fresco form various stories can be seen visualized in stories of absurdism, surreality, emotions and metaphors.
It is visible, man does not take it serieus with nature, nature is trampled underfoot.
The opposite can also be seen, man who wants to cherish nature, a piece of mushroom (symbolic mushroom) and ultimately has to pay a lot of money for this peace of nature.
The fall through garbage can be seen in the centre of the crowd. The smog that is left behind when we fly, when we travel, by the woman with her travel bag. Pink mushrooms stand for artificial nature but which ultimately do not provide a solution.
Chilling results in waste, which pollutes our environment and creates an unpleasant living environment. There are quarrels, there are fights.
In this contemporary fresco, the diverse consequences and connections made visual of what ultimately happens if we don’t take care of our world and climate.
I consciously chose the shape of a fresco, precisely because CO2 is in the air and the historical fresco is also a means to depict humanity/social community throughout history.
As a resistant power to Xenophobia, another power had to be created against all that violence. And that is love.
But be warned… love is very, very close to hate..
