misha de ridder: Unreal Reality

March 8 - April 20, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, March 8, 6-8pm
Assembly, 4411 Montrose Blvd, Suite F

Unreal Reality presents a selection of recent works by Dutch artist misha de ridder, each exploring locations imbued with rich histories and cultural significance. de ridder’s practice has always fused art, place, and history with technology, eschewing the objective view of the camera as a tool for capturing reality in favor of viewing reality itself as an act of deep imagination. 

In Unreal Reality, the artist explores how the perceptual and conceptual are intrinsically connected, and how the “machine eye of the camera” unveils another, almost magical space to reconsider what we think we know about our surroundings. Through abstracted, contemplative views of landscape, architecture, and natural phenomena, de ridder highlights the immaterial hidden in the material world—whether it’s centuries of labor that constructed and reconstructed important religious buildings, the strata of geologic time written into a cliff face, or the existential impact of polar light on ecology and landscape. 

At once futuristic and historical, de ridder’s practice also disorients our place as viewers. The artist asserts, “The camera helps us to see the way we are intertwined with the world, to make palpable that we are part of this entity as a given that transcends us—something that is both as real as it is incomprehensible.” 

misha de ridder (b. 1971, The Netherlands) is a visual artist making conceptual photo and video work concerned with perception. His quiet images evoke contemplation and intimacy and invite viewers to look anew at what we consider known and to rethink our surroundings. Reality as an act of deep imagination.

de ridder's work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as Coda Museum, Foam Photography Museum, Museum of the City of New York, and many others. His work has been acquired by both private and major public collections, like the Amsterdam City Archives, Foam Photography Museum, and Asheville Art Museum. de ridder has also published seven monographs: Sightseeing (De Balie 2000), Wilderness (Artimo 2003), Abendsonne (Schaden 2011), Dune (Lavalette 2011), Solstice (Native 2012), Falaise (Roma 2016), and high up close by (Roma 2019).