Deciphering the artist's mind: All things are devoid of intrinsic existences

Deciphering the artist's mind: All things are devoid of intrinsicexistences (2018) belongs to Berend Strik's long-running Decipheringthe Artist's Mind series, in which he photographs artists' studios andtransforms those images through stitching, layered textiles, and selectiveemphasis. Rather than treating the studio as a neutral documentary space, Strikturns it into a site of interpretation, where memory, process, and atmospherebecome visible through intervention.

The title points to one of the central tensions in the series. Strikapproaches the studio as a place charged with traces of thought, while alsoacknowledging that an artist's inner world can never be fully accessed or fixedin a single image. On the Galerie Fons Welters listing, this work is identifiedas (studio RJ), linking it to Ray Johnson and giving the image thecharacter of both portrait and translation.

The stitched additions are essential to that transformation. They interruptthe photograph, slow down the act of looking, and redirect attention towardselected zones within the composition. The result sits between documentationand reinvention: a work that uses textile intervention to question authorship,presence, and the limits of representation.

References: GalerieFons Welters artwork page; YaleUniversity Press: Berend Strik: Deciphering theArtist's Mind.

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