For this project I investigated how perspective and spatial construction influence the way an image is perceived. Inspired by the work of Edward Hopper, whose paintings often balance realism with a sense of quiet estrangement, I reconstructed one of his scenes as a physical set.
Together with a cinematographer and other Production Designer Anna Dekker, I translated the painting into a three-dimensional space. During the process of building a scale model, we discovered that the set needed to be constructed at a 45-degree angle in order for the perspective to visually align with the original painting. The window plane was positioned only 30 cm from the camera lens, while the woman in the scene appeared at life size. Part of the composition was executed as a painted surface on the floor, further distorting the spatial logic of the set.
Through these deliberate distortions, the project reveals how strongly perception depends on viewpoint, scale and spatial construction. The final image was captured on analogue medium-format film using a Hasselblad camera, resulting in a photograph of approximately 60 × 40 cm in which the constructed illusion and the two-dimensional image fully coincide.
My work alongside the original painting