Amsterdam 3hoog achter - expo 4-20 April 2025 
supported by the Amsterdam 750 Foundation on the occasion of Amsterdam's 750th birthday in 2025

Amsterdam is built on wood. Amsterdam also has a long tradition of planting trees for aesthetical reasons, and presumably also for the wellbeing of the population. We know about the 17th century policy of planting trees along the newly built canals. Today Amsterdam is still a city of trees. No wonder I propagate that everyone should have a view on a tree from home, even from the tiniest home thinkable, the '3hoog achter', which means the 3rd floor on the back of the building. 

The project Amsterdam 3hoog achter started during the lockdown in 2020. I made small drawings of the trees I looked upon from home. Friends and family invited me to draw 'their' tree, on the street or in their or their neighbors' backyard, because they knew a history about that tree, or they felt attached to the tree in another way. Tree experts of the municipality of Amsterdam helped me finding homes with nice views on trees... and soon I was drawing trees at homes I didn't know, inhabited by people I hadn't seen before, all over Amsterdam. While drawing the trees the residents told me their stories about these trees. Moving stories I couldn't resist to write down. So part of the project became writing down these tree stories. A poet at whose address I made a drawing, sent me her poem about my visit afterwards. Thus I invited more poets to write a poem about their view on a tree, inviting myself to their places to portray their trees. 

These drawings and tree stories and poems together document our contemporary urban living with trees. It's this documentation I'll show in an exhibition in from 4-20 of April 2025 at WG Kunst Gallery. And to preserve the series as a whole a book will be presented on the opening event, containing all the drawings, residents' stories and poetry.