Although Daan Couzijn's (1994) artwork looks somewhat like a classical painting, it’s not. Using artificial intelligence, he created a digital image based on the well-known 17th and 18th-century paintings of the Dutch landscape. Then, he asked a Chinese master forger to turn it into an oil painting.
Our collective memory of the Dutch landscape is largely shaped by how painters have visualized it over time: as an ideal depiction of pure, unspoiled nature. In reality, these were highly romanticized renderings of the man-made polder landscape. This raises the question of how authentic the landscape in our memories actually is.
Couzijn grew up in the Dutch polder landscape. It's a place that shaped him, though he never quite felt at home in it. 'The landscape is a part of me, but also represents a world I wanted to distance myself from. That polder land, however familiar, evokes a certain estrangement; it's my roots, but also something I always wanted to escape.'
His painting evokes the same tension. It shows familiar elements that feel like home to many Dutch people, 'but it simultaneously refers to the artificiality of the polders and our collective, romanticized memory.' The text in the center of the work invites viewers to reflect on their own relationship with their homeland.
Daan Couzijn lives and works in Paris. Through various techniques, from traditional to digital, he explores the desire for authenticity. His work has previously been shown at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and other museums and galleries in The Netherlands and around the world.