Fred van Welie - The Netherlands

Statement
I live in Dronten, Flevoland* since 1992. It is a ‘50 years young‘ part of The Netherlands, mostly an agriculture polder. My home is built on the old sea bottom 6 meters below sea level. *The Flevo polder is my studio, there is a lot of beauty to enjoy, A lot of my work comes from this area.
I’m retired as audio-visual designer at the Wageningen University. I made a lot of design, photos and videos to support research; My scientific clients ask: “can you make a video… or a photo reportage of…”, my answer “yes I can”, free as a bird I can use my artistic skills to finish the job.

I’m a photographer and my home surrounding is my studio. I’m a humanist and like to travel, meet other cultures; so I made a lot of photographs too. I’m also a documentary filmer. Some examples, I produced a documentary “C’est la Vie”, (“That’s life”) about the social living of the Dogon in Mali and I made a documentary “Social (M)eating” about a Dutch/Portuguese cook and his crew preparing a meal for 500 guests on an outside dinner festival at a 120 meters long table, with music, theatre and fun. (https://cutt.ly/xiyzv4b)
In my documentary photography work I sometimes use creative but minimal Photoshop modifications. This results in an almost undetectable de-realization. A slightly deforming filter does not show reality but it does provide a clear image of the object. Other characteristics are bright colors, detail photos and combinations of photos.
As artist I’m involved with different national and international art projects, often involved in the organization of all, so I met a lot of artists from all over the world. I’m active on social media and you can find me on different websites and platforms
My works at: http://www.behance.net/fredvanwelie,
https://photos.google.com/albums
https://www.youtube.com/user/vanwelie13/videos,
https://www.facebook.com/fred.vanwelie
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I have made this composition some years ago during the Arab Spring and changed this composition since then several times.
The western countries should not give financial help to governments of poor countries, mostly they use it to buy weapons to keep the locals under control, see Syria, a lot of civil war and refugees. And it gives corruption possibilities, the rich get richer, the poor stay poor.
In my opinion it is better to provide financial support to local people with economic initiatives and ideas to make their lives better, healthier so that they become less dependent on financial help from others.
Gold, the left part symbolizes the rich western world, Salt, the right part the poor third world
The Tuareg still dig salt in the salt mines in the northern part of the Sahara Desert and sell it on the market. here salt is still a luxury. So salt is here a sign of wealth.
Gold is Salt, Salt is Gold (Sal comes from ancient roman word salarium, payment in salt, so Salary was a form of barter)

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all digital photography, size from 30x40 or larger

Fred van Welie
Dronten, The Netherlands

Artwork information :

6. Dancing on the beach at low tide, 2015 - Terschelling, Oerol festival, Holland
7. Birth of a sandstorm, 2010, triptych, 1.30x 40 cm - at the Niger river near Tombouctou-Mali