Ruud also travelled to jungles and gardens
around the world to take fragments for
these works. “I have taken photographs in
many countries including Sri Lanka, Cuba,
Surinam, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa
and the Netherlands. All my images
are fully assembled, and there are
around 250 photos in every image,” he says.
Each of the images is a collage, the result
of a painstaking combination of hundreds
of fragments taken from Ruud’s own photo
database. A single work can take him up to
three months to complete, and the images
are often uncanny and unsettling, because
of this complex method of digital collage.
His work makes us question what’s real
and what’s artificial, in an age where
digital simulation is generally all around us.
Unlike wildlife photographers or
naturalists, Ruud isn’t trying to
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Ruudvan^Empel.^ CourtesyofHuxley-ParlourGalleryRuud van Empel