Some Things Bleak, a publication about seeing versus not seeing, about gender, class and climate, a work about representation and reproduction. In short, a vehicle for perception and togetherness.
After leaving an artist in residence in Japan spring 2019 and being back in Amsterdam Markus felt the need for silence and contemplation. Intuitively she built a studio setting in the forest and a photographic process began. It started with a found tarpaulin; the same kind of blue tarp that is a common sight in Japan and if one looks closer most often a shelter for someone without a home appears.
The same familiar blue patches that we see in Europe on building sites and in gardens, a weave that shelters from the wet and hides what we should not see. Using the sun as the only light source plants were photographed through the weave resulting in images seemingly being at sea, being under water or floating in a blue sky. Yet it is only a woven blue plastic piece that hides what is right in front of us. It blocks our view and hides the natural. A deception. An illusion.