herman de vries

For herman de vries, art is the process of becoming aware, and thus he transfers the facets of nature as he experiences it himself into his art, where it is made tangible for the viewer. With the goal of “finding the poetry of things in things”, his oeuvre is designed not only to represent reality, but also to make things appear as things themselves by showing them directly and thus detaching them from their external attributions. With a scientific and artistic approach, he collects leaves, parts of plants, earth, stalks and rocks, works on them, dries them and arranges them, working entirely without hierarchies and establishing no classifications. In doing so, he concentrates on the cyclical processes of growth and decay and shows the multifaceted spectrum and diversity of nature. Nature as experience and at the same time essential reality is thus the basic constant of herman de vries’ work.

The work of the 91-year-old is now presented in many collections and internationally renowned museums, and he has been one of the most respected figures of environmental art since his design of the Dutch pavilion “to be all ways to be” at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).