Fallen Women

Anna Utrecht 2013.

It is 11.30 am on a drizzly Friday morning and Utrecht’s Zandpad is busy.

The steady stream of cars cruise this picturesque narrow stretch of river.

There are 145 rooms on these boats, which form a neat line on the waters edge.

As of the 25 July 2013 these, love boats will be closed by the council of Utrecht.

The council claims that the boats are posing a threat to public order and for the protection of the girls working on them, whom they believe are the victims of human trafficking.

For some of the girls this is probably true, but Anna had a different story.

Anna works here because the security is good. Surveillance cameras perch strategically on the lampposts that line the path. There are two supervisors constantly present on the streets. The office is manned 24 hours where the alarm system is held. Every room has an alarm next to the bed and when pushed not only notifies the office that there is trouble but immediately records the situation.

Anna was not coerced, abducted or enslaved into prostitution although it wasn’t her first choice of work (she wanted to be a policewoman) it happened to be the best alternative available.

Anna tells me she is her own boss and determines when she goes to work or not, how much she works, which customers she takes and what happens once they are inside.

With a regular client base (Anna’s mobile phone rings three times during our 15 minute conversation) she feels that she has control over her life. Sure she has her good days and her bad days but she believes that she provides a service that her clients are happy to pay for.

Anna doesn’t want to think about how many guys she sleeps with in day she just wants to think about the freedom that the money will bring her. She dares to hope that one day she can go back to studying and live an integrated life in The Netherlands.

Due to the closure of these love boats Anna is now forced to find another location for her work. Going back on the street or into a brothel is not an option for her anymore, she has gotten used to the security and doesn’t want to give that up.

Natalia Amsterdam 2012.

Like an X-rated Alice in Wonderland, incandescent in the
glow of pink and ultra violet lights. Her body provocatively
poses behind the glass taunting and teasing the packs of
young boys prowling the red light district of Amsterdam,
high on testosterone and looking for relief.

50 euros for 15 minutes with Natalia in a small badly lit
room smelling of massage oil and disinfectant. On the
bed a strategically placed piece of plastic marks the spot
where countless others have been.
Natalia has worked in this room for 3 years. She is from a
provincial town in Romania and got into prostitution,
like so many other women, by a man who promised her a
better life in the west.
Instead he abused her, forced her into prostitution, stole
her money, her passport her freedom and then disappeared.

Working on a series called Street Walkers...

Tilly Devine

Cora Pearl

Mary Jane Kelly

Anne Peripatetic

Theresa Berkley

Five photographers share their views on Subjective Reality.

Five photographers share their views on Subjective Reality.: The theme Subjective Reality focuses on how technique contributes to an artist’s meaning and how the technical innovations of the 21st century can shift our perceptions into a seeing of the unseen. The artist’s participating were selected by FotoDeli especially for Cook and Becker, The Next-gen Art dealers.

Outlook

Back on the Street

Grafhead

Street Girl

When is graffiti vandalism and when is it art?

Sophie

Graffiti
Buurkerkhof Utrecht 

The Road Well Travelled...

The Road Well Travelled
Mix medium on canvas
80cm x 80cm

If these walls could speak.

If these walls could speak.
Mixed medium on canvas
100 cm x 50 cm

Spilt Milk

Spilt Milk 120 cm x 80 cm.
Printed on canvas with a dribble of paint.

Higgs Boson part 1.

Mixed medium on canvas 60 cm x 60 cm

'If our ideas about the Higgs boson turn out to be correct, then everything we see is a kind of window dressing based on an underlying fabric of reality in which we shouldn't exist. The particles that make us up – which bind together to form protons, neutrons, nuclei and ultimately atoms – have mass. Without the Higgs, these particles would be massless, like photons.

We all know from our own experience that how heavy something feels depends on where it is located. For example, objects that are heavy on land appear lighter in water. Similarly, if you try to push a spoon through treacle it appears heavier than if you push it through air.

The standard model of particle physics implies that there is a "Higgs field" that permeates all space. This field interacts with particles, and does so with varying strengths. Particles that interact more strongly experience more resistance to their motion and appear heavier. Some particles, such as photons, do not interact with the field at all and remain massless.

In this way, the mass of everything is determined by the existence of the field, and mass is an accident of our circumstances because we exist in a universe in which such a background field happens to have arisen.' Lawrence Krauss

Sketchbook project 2012

My theme was 'In ten minutes, '
which is about how long it takes to put one collage in the book.
There is no order to this book.
It is random thoughts turned into images.
Made from things that are left over or tests I make for my canvases.
It is my way of keeping fresh.

The Feast

The Feast
Giclee print mounted on dibond with Diasec and acrylic glass 120 x 90 cm.
SOLD

Sketchbook Project 2012

Second time around for the Sketchbook project.

I like the pressure of a deadline.
No time for artistic contemplation or insecurities.
Just doing it.

Parrot preserved.

Mixed medium on canvas 50 cm x 50 cm.

I found this parrot in a junk shop.
I like to think that it once lived and that the owner devastated
by it's demise preserved it on cardboard.
Dusty and abandoned I brought it back to life
new eyes, new feet, a new feather or two
a swing and a freshly painted
environment and Perry the parrot lives on.