“I make what I dream.”

Hoogendijk’s photographs – many of them portraits and nudes – come from her dreams. First, she encounters someone she wishes to portray. Then, in her dream, she sees the image she wants to make. Hoogendijk articulates what is both consciously and unconsciously rooted in her. Her images feature universal contrasts like dark and light, emptiness and fulfillment, disclosure and concealment, as a metaphor for birth and death, the essence of every life. Freedom and liberation, woman and motherhood are recurring themes, as are water, the naked body and masks. 

The narrative nature of her serene, tranquil images is reminiscent of the paintings of the Flemish primitives, of Vermeer and of late nineteenth-century symbolism. Stylized distance, bittersweet realism and refined aesthetics typify her work. Her photographs are layered. Besides the layers of digital image manipulation and Hoogendijk’s own imagination, they also include the layers within the person depicted. She reveals her own story and that of her subject, and also the story of the viewer: “I make my point and then it’s anything goes. Other people’s interpretation means much more to me.”