An ocean in between the waves — Gert Motmans. Published by Gert Motmans & Hopper&Fuchs.
From its opening spread of the propeller’s wash opposite a carte postale, Gert Motmans’ An Ocean in Between the Waves is a dreamy, enchanting book leading one into a vision of a journey. This suggestion of voyaging, in real life or perhaps in a dream, is magnified by Motmans’ use of hallucinatory color, collage and striking juxtapositions.
When asked about what his book meant to him personally, Motmans said that during a time of personal reflection, it “served as a bridge between the past, present and the future - a way to connect these moments and bring them into focus.”
Offset printed yet close to the look and feel of an artist’s book, Motmans has made use of photography’s connection with verisimilitude to coax the reader into a somewhat unreal but still recognizable world populated with his poetic imagery.
Cheryl Van Hooven is a photographer and writer based in New York and often working in the California Mojave Desert. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints & Photographs, Imagery Estate Winery Permanent Collection at Sonoma State University, among others. She is currently working on a photo/text book.