Ruud van Empel was born in Breda, The Netherlands, in 1958. Like the work of his artistic historical forebears, his photographs project a particularly original sensibility for the technical and symbolic use of colour. The artist seems to have directly inherited a van Eyck or Rembrandt’s ability to create the illusion of brightness and high detail in his images in a remarkably mesmerizing way. Having worked in the art industry all his life, first in the theatre and the graphic design world, later becoming involved with film, van Empel started focusing on photography in the nineties. Beginning by experimenting with black & white image-making, he soon delved into the possibilities of playing with colour, creating a few series of extraordinarily rich scenarios. The meticulously rendered details in his compositions were reminiscent of the form and facture of his geographic ancestors’ widely coveted painted gardens, where hundreds of different kinds of plants could be identified and believed to be as real as their actual counterparts; instead of using oil, van Empel ‘paints’ with photographs, their vivid qualities obscuring the fact that they are magnificent illusions, nothing more.

According to van Empel innocence, fantasy and beauty are some of the inspirations behind his work, but perhaps desire plays a strong inspirational role as well. Not just the kind of desire behind all creative inspiration, but a deeper longing somehow reflected in his choice of subjects and the characters he selects to include in his visual storytelling. Van Empel’s unique exploration of desire is expressed through his quest for perfection. He achieves his vision by combining an expert use of technology with a flair for traditional colour experimentation; tools that help him flesh out those idealised, fantastically mysterious characters inhabiting his images. Forest landscapes, animals and beautiful women and children are all often portrayed within the same environment, sharing a kind of artist-made golden age where the wild is merged with the civilized, driven by a desire for what van Empel calls ‘heavenly feelings’ – however unconsciously symbolic.

Imagination can be a very powerful thing, scarily effective as the perfect compensation for the real insanity of our ordinary lives. Imagination can save us from getting lost in inevitable reality. It makes us dream while we are awake. Combined with our inner, usually repressed, desires, imagination can be an extraordinary catalyst, and art invites our adult selves to create that childlike sense of magic. It’s no surprise Ruud van Empel often chooses children to play the leading roles in his compositions. His characters embody an infectious type of wonder, a very strong, primitive impulse of desire. The feeling that everything is possible turns into something concrete and almost physically palpable in the artist’s prints, allowing fantasy to encroach in on reality and allowing us to become as naïf, innocent and fresh as those kids staring at us; at least for a moment.