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Artist Gilleam Trapenberg (1991)
Title Westpunt
Year 2021
Material Inkjet print on aluminium and art glass
About the work
This photo shows Westpunt, a seaside village in the northernmost tip of Curaçao. We see a grey sky and a lone palm tree, surrounded by a bucket of frying fat on top of an oven, a corrugated iron shed, clothes drying on a clothesline and other signs of life. The image offers a stark contrast to how Westpunt is often portrayed on social media and in advertising – as a luxury holiday destination with white beaches lined by a brilliant blue sea. The palm tree and the objects in this photo are the silent witnesses of daily life in the village. By photographing them, Trapenberg shows a different side of Curaçao that’s rarely captured.
About the artist
In his work, Gilleam Trapenberg reflects on the contradictions in Curaçao’s social landscape, where the idea of a utopian paradise exists in opposition to the daily reality of mass tourism and the heritage of the colonial past. He was born in Willemstad, Curaçao and studied photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Trapenberg has received several grants and awards for his work, including the Florentine Riem Vis Grant. In 2021, he held his first solo exhibition at Foam, in Amsterdam. He currently lives and works in Amsterdam.
In the collection
In 2022 and 2023, De Nederlandsche Bank acquired three more photographic works by Trapenberg, titled Bòrò, Semikok, and Kant’i Laman No 3 (Aan het water No 3).