Dindi van der Hoek - Wandering waters

Her fascination with water reflections and ‘man and her identity’ is surprising and visible in all works. With surreal images, Dindi takes the viewer through an ‘inner walk’. The path passes identity, inner layering and masks. Masks that people use to unconsciously (or consciously) camouflage their true identity. The work is about concealing and revealing. About inner contradictions, duality and disentanglement. Her work is a visual expression of an inner process.

Through the apparent reality of the masks and reflections in her work, the viewer can be taken on a journey through his/her own illusionary world of concealments, false identities or limiting beliefs. The water in her work mirrors and acts as an honest companion and the clearest metaphor for life itself: uncontrollable, transparent and fluidly flexible.

Artist and photographer Dindi van der Hoek is known for her surreal water worlds. Photographing water reflections is an important basis of her visual imagery. Her work is aesthetic, disturbing and penetrating. As a viewer, you become part of her images that can be confusing and dualistic. For years she worked underwater in a swimming pool, but since 2019 she built a water basin in her studio and continued her experiments in it. In this new situation, she explored the influence of ink and milk in water, creating new images that seemingly effortlessly combine beauty with a ragged darkness. Dindi paints with the pixel. She arranges all facets of the image: from making costumes, masks and props to make-up the model and photo montage. Like a digital painter, she thus builds her own world. One thing she cannot control is water. Water thus teaches her to let go of control again.