PROJECTS

Sculpting and Modelling in Lucca, Italy

Project: Feature film, unnamed Function: Art Director, Artist, Set Designer Location: Lucca, Tuscany In addition to designing sets and tending to their construction under the Production Designer, Wilbert van Dorp, Todd filled a couple of other artistic holes: sculptor, occasional scenic artist and 3d modeller.  Here are a few photogenic

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Recent Gallery Work: The Book of Lost Forests

The Book of Lost Forests: Black and White paintings made of charcoal ink on paper, drawn from coals collected from burnt out forests in Oregon (USA). It explores again human relationships to nature. Compositions feel historic and vaguely narrative, but are ultimately very abstract upon closer inspection. This apparent historicity is

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Recent Gallery Work: Tarnation

Tarnation: This series is an experiment in the meaning of materials. A kind of architecture is made from handmade waxes, tars and pigments. An almost ecclesiastical architecture arises out of bitumen and tar, wax and damar. Drawings made of charcoal ink, gum arabic, shellac, etc sketch a new direction for mixing

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Recent Gallery Work: Aviaries

Aviaries: Both Aviaries and the series Harpies are an expression of “natures revenge” and inescapable human hubris. There is an architecture made to contain nature, in a sense to bring us closer to nature, but it is exploded and degraded. The human and historical elements are too apparent to ever allow

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Recent Gallery Work: Harpies

Harpies (Vengeful Flock): This series is an elaboration on the paper cuts from the past. Largely it is an expressionist diversion away from the literalness and narrative qualities of the paper cuts which were either done on commission or following a literary theme, such as the cantos of Dante’s Inferno.

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Interactives for Land Art Museum Flevoland

The Dutch province of Flevoland, entirely reclaimed from the sea in the 1950s and 1960s, has great swathes of open space and relatively new “nature”.  As such there is a remarkable amount of so called Land Art in the province. Land Art is an artform analogous to sculpture that employs

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A Big Wax Model of Hoorn

photo Benno Ellerbroek Hoorn is an old city in the North of Holland on the shores of the former Zuyder Sea. In the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries it was wildly prosperous, and sent its merchants and soldiers the world over in search of glory and domination. Great profits,

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The Belfry Museum of Monnickendam

The regional museum “Waterlands Museum & Speeltoren” is a museum dedicated to the history of the region just north of Amsterdam, called Waterland. The main town of the region is charming Monnickendam, and the main landmark of Monnickendam is it’s ancient belltower, the “Speeltoren“. The tower houses the oldest carillon

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Model of Historic Chambers in Hoorn

For a new exhibition for the marvellous West Friesmuseum in the city of Hoorn we had the challenge of working in a beautiful period room from the middle of the 18th century. When working in a rich historic space it is necessary to take account of more layers of aesthetics,

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A quick bit of heritage modelling

https://www.vanhulzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/kanon_model-1.mp4 For the Mauritshuis in The Hague I was engaged on a project which included research and exhibitions about plundered art or “roofkunst”, meaning specifically the works of art and artifacts that were stolen from colonialized countries and other subjugated peoples during the Western push to dominate the world. The

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Small intimate paper-cuts

Commissions come in all shapes and sizes. Additionally, the emotional teneur can vary quite a lot. Recently I’ve made two small paper-cuts that have served as memorials to the recently deceased: One as a pall accessory —the pall being the cloth that lays on a coffin at a funeral service—

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Installation “Black Eden” at M. Museum

My immersive installation “Black Eden” is open in the pop-up annex of M. Museum, in Almere. Black Eden which alternatively could be called “Carbon Garden”, is about cognitive dissonance in a scorched paradise. It’s a comment on human self image and ecology. Museum M. is making its mark by orienting

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Exhibit Designs for a Medieval Castle

From the category “things I forgot to post”: looking back on some great drawings and models from a commissioned remodel-concept for a medieval castle from 2 years back. Kasteel Ammersoyen is on the edge of Gelderland near Den Bosch, and is now preserved as a museum. Within the portfolio of

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Paper-cut “rosette” cantos from Dante’s Inferno

As a young man I lived in Rome. I learned Italian as one would —being before the time that speaking English was self-evident— and immersed myself in the glories of Rome: baroque architecture, ancient marbles, Carolingian mozaics, etc. But the thing that has endured with me the most is the

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Bronze door handles for North Holland Archive

I’ve been doing quite a lot for the North Holland Archives the last couple of years (see: Women in the Resistance and Johan Enschede: Printer of Value). But I hadn’t expected to do any sculptural work for them. Yet when they asked if I knew anyone who could upgrade their

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Three Paper Cut Commissions

I’ve had three recent paper cut commissions, specifically for horizontal banners celebrating lives: a 50th anniversary, a 50th birthday, and the passing of a lived life. The Anniversary banner combined emblems of a shared life in a matrix of baroque ornament, all framing portraits of the beloved. The Birthday banner

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Exhibition Women in the Resistance

Design for the exhibition Vrouwen in verzet (Women in the Resistance) at the North Holland Archives in Haarlem.The Noord-Hollands Archief revisits the subject of the role of women in the resistance against Nazi Occupation in the period around World War II.  A hitherto neglected subject, Vrouwen in Verzet sets the record

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Immersive Labyrinth in Almere

Here is the first part of a two pronged project in Almere, the design of an exhibition space and an invitation to be one of the artists in the exhibition. Almere is a medium large city east of Amsterdam that typifies the engineering prowess of the Dutch: within 40 years

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Exploded View Viewers in Monnickendam

Voilá a design for exhibition gadgets from the do-I-know-what-i’m-doing department. . This is for viewer of digital content which will be housed in an in-museum “lookout tower” in the Waterlands Museum & Belltower in Monnickendam, and it’s supposed to look and function like a landscape viewing scope. The content is

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Roman wall paintings for “Het verhaal van Nederland”

It’s a bit hors concours but I’ve done some nice set painting again, and the historical series that it was done for has now aired. Het verhaal van Nederland (The Story of the Netherlands) created by the Dutch public broadcaster (yay!) aired early in 2022 and really surprised everyone with it’s

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Refugee Family Portraits

Just a little in-between project full of good will: a traveling expo of family portraits taken of refugees in the camps on the Greek island of Lesbos, famous for it’s dire conditions and hope-killing prospects. The exhibit showed in the main municipal library of Amsterdam on the Oosterdok. The dominant

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Display case in style of Gothic Scriptorium

Channeling my inner Viollet-le-Duc (the great French champion of the Gothic-revival) I designed these nice display stands modeled after medieval scrivener’s lecterns, or scriptoriums (yes, we struggle with the proper Latin scriptoria). These variations on the display case are for the Noord-Holland Archives in Haarlem, housed in the ancient Gothic

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Waterland Museum & Speeltoren

Preparations are underway for the redesign of the Carillon Gallery in the Waterland Museum and Speeltoren in Monnickendam. After an initial trajectory, together with Studio Louter, of making a bid-book and a very succesful fundraising, we have started to fully develop a new permanent exhibition. It tells the story of

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First Americans at Museum Volkenkunde

Despite all the precautions due to Covid19, we enjoyed a lovely opening of our most recent project, First Americans at the Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. The exhibition is a contribution to –or answer to – the Pilgrim Year of the city of Leiden, in which the “pilgrim fathers” who

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‘Johan Enschedé’ in the North Holland Archives

Finally, together with our partners Studio Louter and North-Holland Archives in Haarlem, we opened the exhibition “Johan Enschedé: Printer of Value” . Since 2015, the North-Holland Archives has aquired the unique and extensive collection frp, the printing house Royal Johan Enschedé. On November 25 a permanent exhibition dedicated to Enschedé

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Kick-off for ‘Hof van Nederland’, in Dordrecht

We are very happy with our newest commission for the Hof van Nederland / Dordrechts Museum. The Hof, or “court”, a former Augustinian monastery, occupies a very special place in Dutch history. You could almost call it the “cradle of Holland” because of two important events there: the first independent

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Graphic work for “Mad for Money”

In addition to the architectural design for the exhibition “Mad for Money” in the Tax & Customs Museum, I also worked rather hard on the graphic layer. I wanted to highlight that separately. Together with graphic designer Rob Meerman (formerly from Mannschaft) I did a lot of illustration work for,

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A Vision for Ammersoyen Castle

Ammersoyen Castle in the town of Ammersoden is one of the seven castles owned by the foundation Gelderland Landscape and Castles. Of all their properties, Ammersoyen Castle exudes the atmosphere of the Middle Ages the most. After all, it dates from the fourteenth century and has almost stood the test

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A Royal Opening in Rotterdam

At the opening of our most recent major project, “Crazy about Money” in the Tax and Customs Museum, we received a very special guest of honor: Her Majesty Queen Máxima. I, Todd, had the opportunity to talk to our queen for a few minutes about the design of the exhibition

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