CHILDHOOD 

After a very complex childhood in the foster care system, where any form of creativity and expression was forcibly suppressed, I eventually left at almost twenty years old with permanent injury,  complex trauma and without any social background. Deprived from mental health care or any support after foster care  in my country,  I created hundreds of drawings on a horrible and  destructive childhood, like the watercolor drawing The Sunday window made in 2021 (photo left). In  a special collection concealed, I depict various experiences related to social injustice and  violence directed by governmental policies. 

CREATIVITY 

My first creative period  in life was between 1992 and 1997, by the making of  portraits and figurative pastel drawings  and oil paintings from 'unfinished  and unshared memories'. In 2002,  almost this entire collection was destroyed, about thirty drawings survived.  In  2004 and for the next decades,  I resumed  my  creative process, which was marked with many struggles. I was making nature art,  did  weaving work and  made authentic prehistoric tools. In the following years, I  created  digital art, glass mosaic sculptures and 3D -objects.  The realization that creativity is a means of self-discovery and connecting with the world made me decide in 2019 to pursue a career as an artist later in life. Inspired by the Hungarian watercolorist Jozsef Rákosi, I began watercolor drawing.  Meanwhile  between 2020 and 2023 I attended the art academies of Tongeren and Verviers in Belgium.  A part of my work has been used in various talks on the intersection of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and creativity, starting at the All- in event, participation about DID; Bonnefantenmuseum  Maastricht 2002 (photo left).

IDENTITY 

I  employed creativity to explore the expression of emotions and the fusion of contemporary concepts of various and diverse rejected genders and  identities.  This creative journey unfolded in my ' identity restoration studio' (2022-2023,  see photo left).  Creativity  became a pathway to explore   boyhood and more specific key factors of  the  young boy's queer identity and diverse identity.  Ten  portraits from a series of forty were displayed at the "Verbeelding" group exhibition in 2023, held at the Townhall of Beek. 

PROGRESS

I was very happy to turn nature into my studio during  the summer of 2022 which marked a starting point of a changed focus from identity related  subjects  towards landscape and nature drawing (photo left).