Ort Willems

My name is Ort Willems. I am 24 years old and a second-year Fine Art student at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in the Netherlands. In my work, I explore questions of identity, self-image, and social position. I focus on my own role as an individual and as a straight(ish) white man, driven by a desire both to understand that position and to critically examine it.

In the painting series Finding the Center Between Mirrors, I investigate the tension between how I see myself and how I am seen by others. I am particularly interested in the distance between these two perspectives: the inner mirror of lived experience and the outer mirror of social projection.

The series emerged from a search for a middle ground between these two images. The paintings are an attempt to create something beautiful from the spaces in between.

- Ort Willems