You can still visit my first exhibition at Fotomuseum The Hague, one more month to go until the 19th of June. A lot of visitors and the book is also selling fast. I didn’t expect this: totally overwhelmed by the wonderful overall response, private messages and islandlovers who visit the exhibition multiple times.
Arrival, Ameland 2019
My new book ‘EILAND’
maart 16, 2022
Impressive homage to the West Frisian Islands by photographer Jeroen Hofman , you can order your copy here
“Moving from A to B with the ferry across the open water feels grandiose. Standing at the railing on the outer deck, the mainland disappearing behind you and the island slowly looming up in front of you, something strange happens. A tranquillity came over me that I had never experienced before. A new world lay at my feet.”
— Jeroen Hofman
Photographer Jeroen Hofman worked for years in all weathers on this magnum opus, capturing the Dutch islands in monumental images like a contemporary painter. All the photos were taken from an aerial platform, which enabled him to capture the landscape and the horizon in a very special way.
An island has a mythical appeal to man and the imagination. This book celebrates and depicts the longing for an island as a place of rest, nature and seclusion.
With text contributions by journalist and writer Arnold van Bruggen, who lives on Texel and made the iconic book The Sochi Project together with Rob Hornstra, and by Willemijn van der Zwaan, curator at Fotomuseum Den Haag.
Publication at the solo exhibition of the same name at Fotomuseum Den Haag, from 19 March until 19 June 2022.
My first Solo exhibition in FotoMuseum Den Haag
februari 15, 2022
From March 19 to June 19. (opening on March 18)
Curves, Ameland, 2018
‘There’s a particular point above ground where you can no longer hear the people down below, and you can’t quite reach the birds above. Complete isolation like that sharpens my senses.’ Photographer Jeroen Hofman always works in a crane about 20 metres up in the air. It allows him to express his fascination with the layers in landscapes. He not only shows the banks of a river, he also illustrates how the entire river bed meanders through the landscape, as he literally rises above what the human eye normally sees. Foreground and background merge in the resulting images, which are like modern dioramas. In recent years Hofman has been to the Frisian Islands several times, putting up his crane in all kinds of weathers. During its ‘Ode to the Landscape’ year, Fotomuseum Den Haag will be the first to show Hofman’s new work featuring this unique part of the Netherlands, in an exhibition entitled Island.
Whether documenting the city parks of Amsterdam and Rotterdam or the Frisian islands, I have a particular method: working from up high, standing on an elevated platform. The trouble of renting a hydraulic hoist for every shoot pays off: seen from a bird’s eye view, the architecture of the parks, or the vastness and tranquility of the islands, become clearly visible. It’s a height at which you can no longer understand what the people below are saying and the birds above you are just out of reach.
photo by Koos Breukel
For my latest project, ‘EILAND’, I visited the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. They are a popular tourist destination in the Netherlands. The islands are the perfect natural escape; a place where endless thoughts make way for endless horizons.
A few works have since been bought by private collectors and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its embassies. Much of my commercial work is offered to me by people who have seen my personal work and want to incorporate my style or aesthetic fingerprint into their products or projects.