A new Old master: the digital flower still lifes of Bas Meeuws

Bas Meeuws' photos are classically beautiful yet radically contemporary. He composes his still lifes piece by piece, but digitally: the basis of Meeuws' monumental works are photos of individual flowers. There is a nod towards the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century: their sense of luxury, but also their eye for the transient.
Self-taught, he draws on his catalog of over 13,000 species to create artworks in the line of Ambrosius Bosschaert or Jan Davidsz de Heem. He orchestrates an extraordinary diversity of flowers, demonstrating the same descriptive precision, enriching the works further with insects or gastropods.

“The bouquets actually were impossible constructions, with flowers from different seasons, all in full bloom. I like to emulate this in my work, and to transcend time. The consolation of photography, that is how I see these timeless works.”
- Bas Meeuws