The Mesdag Collection invites artist Kim Boske (1978) to take a fresh look at the museum collection. Her work focuses on nature and how we see and experience it. For Boske, nature is always changing. Everything grows, blooms and dies, just like people. It all passes, only to return. In this way, nature is connected to everything around us.
Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Sientje Mesdag-van Houten enjoyed collecting pieces by artists who placed nature at the heart of their work. In their collection, Boske was inspired by a rare Japanese dish, paintings by Théodore Rousseau – one of the Barbizon painters – and the tapestries, featuring forests and water. In the exhibition, Boske presents these works together with her own.
Boske explores the origins of these artworks. What inspired their makers? And what new work might that inspire her to create?