Ruud van Empel

Dutch photographer Ruud van Empel uses Photoshop to combine fragments from numerous digital photographs into seamless compositions, creating images that appear simultaneously lifelike and surreal. Initially working as a designer and artistic director for theater, television, and film, Van Empel turned to fine art in the late 1990s. In The Office, his first major photographic series, he created uncanny, manipulated images of adult figures dwarfed by their work environments. However, he is best known for his images of children: series such as Moon, Venus, Dawn, and World, depict mostly dark-skinned children, often in formalwear, placed in lush natural environments, recalling the dreamlike jungle paintings of Henri Rousseau.

Van Empel's work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands and the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and group exhibitions at the George Eastman House in Rochester, the Museum Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf, the Pinchuk Art Center in Kiev, and the Seoul Arts Center.