David van Dartel’s self-portraits appear out of soft, serene landscapes – figures reflected in water, emerging from tall dune grasses or bobbing in deep blue seas.
The images experiment with different versions of the self, rendered in dream-like topographies that ruminate around the power and immensity of nature. In doing so, van Dartel almost references Romantic sensibilities.
Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is mirrored in the works. These photographs are a vision of what it means to be alive, and at times, alone, in desolate or alienated landscapes.
