Inspiration Feeder: Maarten Rots

Our “Inspiration Feeder” presents to you short interviews with interesting visual artists from around the globe. Today in focus: Maarten Rots.

How old are you?

I’ve been on the planet for 13.750 days to date.

Where do you come from?

I am from the Netherlands, where I grew up in a town on the countryside in the east of the country. In 2005 I moved to Amsterdam for my fine-art studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. For the past 5 years I have been traveling in my camper van through Europe most of the time.

How long have you been doing photography?

I picked up the photo camera in the summer of 2014 when I replaced my broken video camera with a DSLR with the intention to use it for video as well as still photography. I have instead mainly been using it for still photography since and it has been my main medium for the past 4 years.

How would you define your style?

I usually describe it as follows; with my photography I want to reveal and capture abstract qualities that can be found in everyday life, mostly dealing with the effects of light and shadow on architectural objects and a strong focus on composition, texture and color. The resulting photographs often lean towards graphic imagery and are commonly confused for paintings or drawings upon first look.

How long do you think it took you to find your personal style of shooting?

It’s hard to express that in terms of time, it’s not just the amount of time spent, but also how that amount of time has been spent. Taking photos is probably only a small part of that. A lot of time and energy goes into reflection, looking at what I do, the direction my work looks to be moving into. And it has not just been photography that has influenced me to get to the point where I am now, it comes from all fields of art and just a general interest in what happens around me. It may sound silly, but when I think about it I would say it took me my whole life, and it continues to evolve. I don’t believe there will be a point where I’ll say: ‘This is my style now and I’m going to stick with it’.

What would you say is the thing that most inspires you? / What is your main source of inspiration?

I’m driven and fascinated by the possibility of finding the situations where I can take the photographs that I take. So every chance I get I just really want to be out there with my camera.So I would say it’s very much an internal drive, and not so much an external inspiration.