The waiting room
This was the first commission to make an artwork for a specific waiting room in the hospital.
The space was quite narrow, so I felt the need to enlarge it.
Repeating some basic architectural elements like the window design of the hospital I made a small scale model on my studio table. The view of the fields is actually a classic theatrical solution to suggest immens depth. The trees and shrubs have been cut out and placed in front, the clouds are hanging up in the sky, the background is a few centimeters behind.
The whole model was photographed and enlarged to fit from floor to ceiling in the given space in the hospital.
The result is a waiting room with a view, a large trompe l’oeil in Leiden University Medical Hospital.
The waiting room 2018 digital print on screen 257 x 410 cm collection LUMC
Photography of The waiting room by Gert Jan van Rooij
The Chambers
The same line of thought was repeated in ‘The chambers’ a year later in the staff department of hart surgery in the same hospital.
Originally being closed up hallways in this staff department, I chose to virtually brake down some walls and integrate extra rooms and the suggestion of a roof garden.
Always intrigued by the man standing in the doorway at the back in the famous painting Las Meninas by Velazquez, I wanted to include an open doorway revealing space behind. This can be seen in the smallest rectangular print which suggests the way to the stairs.
Again, essential elements of the interior design of the hallway were transposed to scale models. A combination of foamboard and colour prints which fitted exactly on my studio table. These new spaces were photographed in the studio by Jeroen Dietz using all kind of special lighting effects. The end result was enlarged to fit the walls in the hallway.
The intervention seems plausible at first glance, until one notices the details. The cutting marks on the wooden table and imperfections like excess glue and pencil marks have grown in size.
The chambers 2019 digital print on screen four different sized prints covering four walls in the staff department of hart surgery in the Leiden University Medical Center collection LUMC
Photography of The chambers by Jeroen Dietz
Venster
This waiting room is on the fourth floor of the hospital. The artwork I had made in 2018 is positioned exactly under this space on the third floor.
Therefore I wanted to use the same view, only seen from a higher position. The typical window is more to the left. So the view has moved up too. The tree previously seen on the right has gone. Now a tree on the left has appeared.
Venster 2026 digital print on screen 252 x 410 cm collection LUMC
Dageraad
The previous artworks were all placed on the east side of the hospital. So there’s one view of a landscape reappearing in the scale models depending on location in the hospital. Either it’s seen from a higher or lower standing point or moved up either to the left or right.
The wall of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit is rotated 90 degrees towards the south. This meant another landscape, but I could use the thought of the light coming from the east.
Daybreak, dawn, a new day… I wanted to integrate this moment in the extended space.
Dageraad marks the entrance of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
Dageraad 2026 digital print on screen 264 x 242 cm collection LUMC