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Interpolation 05_Sander Vos_Homecoming Gallery

SANDER VOS

Dutch, self-taught photographer Sander Vos draws inspiration from fine art to create captivating, high-contrast compositions that blur the line between reality and fiction. His work, distinguished by his surrealist lens, stirs the viewer’s imagination and invites them to consider the nature of the subject posing before them. Where photography is often used as a tool to capture exact truths, Vos combines the medium with image manipulation and distinctive layering to transcend reality and transport his audience to a realm they have yet to discover.

I’d like to start by knowing more about your background. You moved from the Netherlands to London. What made you decide to move?

Initially, I moved to London to experience the world. I wanted to gain a fresh perspective, live new experiences, and meet people from different backgrounds. London is where creative culture is shaped. I can walk out on my doorstep and be met with a plethora of choices. I’m originally from a small town where to see something new, you have to leave. Here, I feel you can walk down the street and just be an observer. It’s easy to be anonymous when there are so many people around. That allows people to be themselves and express themselves how they really desire. For me, creatively speaking, that’s very interesting.

That’s so nice. What do you think inspires your creative voice?

I would say I find inspiration in anything really. It could be the way a shadow is cast on a wall, or the way leaves move in a tree. But also, more traditionally, I’m inspired by art. I go to a lot of exhibitions and use the Internet to my advantage. I think inspiration can be found in anything in life really.

What artists are you drawn to?

Already when I was quite young, I was kind of intuitively drawn towards Bauhaus, Kodinsky, and the works of Van Gogh. I was always interested in art, but, I think it took me a while to actually discover how I wanted to express myself creatively. I always liked drawing as a kid in a way that was quite geometric or architectural. When I look back at that, I can see the first steps of what I’m doing right now. So there’s definitely a connection, although at the time I had no idea how I wanted to bring that to life.

Ironically, I was never particularly into photography. I saw it something nice, but I was never obsessed with it. I never owned a camera when I was younger. It was more drawing for me, which was my way of doing something creative. It wasn’t until later on, when I got into Buddhism and learnt to be more present that I felt photography was a very good tool to be aware of my surroundings and to capture these different moments.

That’s really interesting. So, how did that transition from using photography as a tool to becoming a photographer take place?

When I was very busy with my work in advertising. I felt I needed something else, like another way to express myself outside of my work, where there were no deadlines. It started as just me taking a picture and putting it online and sharing it with my friends. I think that gave me a sense of power, which I really enjoyed. So that’s when I started, but it wasn’t until later when I started travelling around South East Asia that I really bought a camera and used it consciously.

Interpolation 06_Sander Vos_Homecoming Gallery

Wow, that’s not what I expected at all. Your inspiration, both in terms of artists and travelling, is something that I would think draws a lot of beauty from colour, which is usually absent in your work. What would you say the link is and how did that decision come about?

I’ve always been drawn towards black-and-white photography. I think one of the reasons for that is that, by removing colour, you draw focus towards the essence of the subject. For example, you pay more attention to the expressions of the figures, to the composition, or to the size that one object has in relation to another. For my work, by removing colour, I’m able to shift the focus towards the interaction between light and shadow. The viewer sees what is light and visible, but they also notice what isn’t visible. That’s a very important part of the composition because what you don’t see also tells part of the story.

Is this storytelling aspect what made you decide to start depicting the human body?

What I find most interesting about the human body is to depict it in a way we aren’t used to seeing. I try to focus mostly on shapes rather than parts, and then see how those shapes link to nature, like if they resemble a sand dune or a hill, or if the shape is more geometric, like a building. After doing this process over and over, I started to recognise that all these elements are connected, so I tried to highlight that in my work.

Interesting. Has that changed your practice?

This new series I’m working on, Interpolation, felt a little bit like a bridge between the series I’ve been working on before and Between the Shadows, which was very focused on still life. Although I loved doing that, I wanted to use the camera as a tool to kind of deconstruct reality and not just document it, but to create an entirely new reality. The way I wanted to do this was by merging different worlds together. So whether it’s a fragment of a face or a shard of a geometric pattern, I want to bring these two worlds together and create a dreamscape that feels a little bit timeless.

So, what’s next for this series?

Yeah, it’s still a work in progress. I’m shooting more images for this series within the same style, but applying it not just to close-ups of the face, but also to show a little bit more of a person, or a hint of a person. I think that will be the next challenge – to create a cohesive series where you see all these elements playing together.