The Fluid Futures - Living Waters series portrays sea life entangled with, or navigating, plastic debris in our oceans. Additional works depict acts of restoration, such as a scuba diver repairing coral reefs. These paintings convey an urgent call to stewardship: to become active partners in healing and protecting the Earth.

I grew up close to the ocean in a part of the Netherlands below sea level, surrounded by rivers, streams, and lakes. In New York I briefly was involved with recreational scuba diving; the otherworldly realm of life underwater has never lost its hold on me.

Through these paintings I explore the beauty and fragility of marine environments, confronting the realities of ocean plastic pollution while offering a message of hope, renewal, and healing. Some works carry whimsical titles that lighten the gravity of the subject, inviting viewers to engage with wonder alongside concern. The series is currently presented in New York City in conversation with the interfaith NOAH: A Future Hope group exhibition, viewed through a lens that emphasizes our responsibility as stewards of creation.

Fluid Futures and the works in the NOAH exhibition continues a larger body of work that functions as calls to action. My developing series on the encounters between Manhattan’s 17th century Dutch settlers, the Lenape, the enslaved, and the first Jews in New Amsterdam further investigates layered histories of place, displacement, resilience, and coexistence; urging reflection on past covenants and present responsibilities.

Whether addressing environmental crisis or historical memory, my paintings contemplate what it means to live with awareness and care in an interconnected world. It reminds us of the significance of even small acts of repair, that the future remains fluid, and that we are called to shape it through stewardship and repair.