Modern architecture & People in the city - digital Collage Art Prints by Hilly van Eerten
Modern architecture & People in the city - digital Collage Art Prints by Hilly van Eerten
An art print, including a digital art print, needs a surface with a "structure" to catch our eyes. A surface without structure remains flat and empty, because there is no background or coherence. The Dutch graphic artist Escher for example, realized this better than anyone. He used his mathematical mind to give his many prints their plane filling by using geometry.
Hilly van Eerten also enjoys using mathematics in her art, but she finds her geometric constructions simply in modern architecture. Coming home from her photo trips in the city, she specifically selects those constructions that offer her a lot of space and transparency. She then digitally simplifies these selected structure in her photo into one single layer.
She adores life in the big city and therefore photographs the people there – in and between the modern buildings. She uses these pictures for creating her second layer - sometimes even a third one. She then digitally slides and edits her layers over each other until an art print starts to emerge that offers a contemporary image of people in the city. All of this is so combined with modern architecture in which people live and move.
In this way, she uses the geometry of modern architecture, reducing this into a basic structure - a concise construction that combines the sveral plane into one digital fine art print. It is precisely for this reason that she is drawn to contemporary architecture, which had often a transparency design. This gives light, depth, and space to the people. A clear example of this transparency is for instance the glass station roof of Bijlmer Arena in Amsterdam, or the open design of The Hague Central Station building with all its interior light and openness. This design is "almost abstract."
Indeed, abstract! But, every day, crowds of people walk beneath these geometric structures to and from the train, tram, or metro. And, the whole thing shouldn't collapse on their heads or let the rain soak in, So, nothing abstract! This way, people have a roof above their heads and can walk under it without rain. Or they stand there, huddled together on the busy escalator, frustrated if they're late for their train. Other people stroll leisurely over the platform, snacking or slurping their coffee.
This is how people weave their way through each other on and across the platforms, covered by a large glass roof with a steel construction. This is daily life of many people in the big city, amidst and within modern architecture. Architecture that all began growing abstractly on a digital screen. But people are certainly considered beforehand, and they spent a lot of hours a day in these interiors.
It is this daily "miracle" that Hilly van Eerten aims to showcase in her art prints, combining daily city life with modern architecture. We are looking at a single print with multiple layers, depicting both people and architecture: an abstract construction and life combined in a single image. Some fans of her work call it collage art, while others see it as a new, complex construction.
She shares us her art prints in which we can see the same things as every day, when we look around in the modern city. But Hilly van Eerten lets us see in a new way - a different way that challenges and captivates our eyes. And of course we can recognize all sorts of things in her fine art prints, because we often walk, stand, or sit there ourselves. It is also our world, including urban modern architecture.
Fons Heijnsbroek