ABOUT "JOHAN"
Johan is always looking for the light above everything else in his photo’s and uses natural light to bring his photo’s to life, accentuate details, highlight expressions and relationships and create simply stunning images.
As an art photographer, Johan van der Horn pursues his craft on the boundaries of past, present and future. His artistic achievements were once awarded with golden cameras - an unreachable dream for most fellow photographers. Van der Horn has an impressive track record in countless spheres of photography.
His compositions embody poetry: an intensified representation of actuality (reality squared, as it were). Varying from oppressive to melancholic, his photographs reveal, without exception, a profound translation of man meeting environment, contemplation expressed through strong, essential characteristics. In that sense,
Johan van der Horn is a ‘child of his time', using the latest cutting-edge digital techniques, yet without giving in to trite manipulation. He utilizes the extremely sophisticated technology only in order to capture and record reality in its most subtle nuances. If we were to speak of any kind of manipulation, it would be the self-willed way in which Johan tries to place the fragments of the world around him in a different, new perspective. This process of redirecting emphasizes the expressive power of the images, often endowing them with symbolic value, thus speaking straight to the heart and evoking many associative sensations.
Light is an essential element in the work of Johan van der Horn. Light and, conversely, darkness, as a complementary counterpart. This is a principle that plays an essential role in all cultures throughout the world, particularly in religions and the related testimonies of people who, seeking the ultimate answer, attempt to define the contours of the relationship between one’s own “self” and the “outside world”.
Every human being searches in his or her own way for answers, often to questions that we haven’t even properly formulated or attempt to understand. Everyone strives, consciously or unconsciously, to find a justification, a goal, a way to give meaning. Van der Horn’s way of doing that closely touches the essence that still lies deeply rooted in the primal experience of the child: timelessness, without boundaries. Fragments take on the value of a totality, seemingly scattered pieces become symbols of a whole. Just as a single whisper can hold the germ of a complete story, so do the images of Van der Horn, though limited in dimension, reveal the perpetual flow of life.
Johan will be seen as a storyteller and artist whose photos have greater depth, passion and appeal because of the artistry, thought, skills, use of light and patience that goes into creating the very best photos. He works like a grand master painter for a very good reason - he is one, except his medium is the camera.
In understanding this, those whose job is to commission photographers will recognise they get something very very special when they book Johan.
Johan
Contact
info@johanvanderhorn.com TEXEL Netherlands Grafshaft Bentheim
